I Need the Sun

So this week saw some nice progress and some big disappointments. I found a fairly quick way to drain my battery which is nice because I'll need to drain it quickly so I can recharge it. I used it to power a mini fridge and that did the trick over night. I was ready to finally charge the battery back up using the solar panel but when I took everything outside I found that when the cloud cover is too high I cant get any current from the solar panel. So, me and the Sun are having some scheduling conflicts and I haven't been able to get the battery to charge yet. Hopefully this week will bring some sunnier days that give me an opportunity to get outside and charge this battery. I want to find out how long the battery takes to charge using this panel, that's my next goal.

...Finally!

This week I received the final piece to my puzzle: the cables to connect my solar panel to the charge controller. I was very excited to finally put all of my pieces together into one circuit. I got to test the whole thing for a little bit this week but I have only been able to use a lamp with the solar panel. I'm hoping to have some nice weather this week so I can take everything outside and get some real sunlight on the panel.

Putting all of the pieces together is a very big step for me and this project. Now I know that I can use the panel to successfully charge the battery. I'll need to drain the battery soon so I can start to figure out how long my panel will take to charge the 12 V battery and then work on ways to make that time faster. That is my goal for this coming week. If I can make maximize the efficiency of my circuit then life will be easier for those who may eventually use this as a source of power.