PV Gap

Judith Said:

What's up with my solar panel?

We Answered:

How were you connecting your batteries to the solar panels? If you were connecting them directly to the 12V output from the panels you were probably overloading the panels and causing the voltage to drop. You could probably charge 10 NiMH or NiCd batteries in series. The voltage of the batteries would add up to 12 volts and be fairly compatible with your solar cells. If you connected them in parallel so the voltage of the batteries were still 1.2 volts and could easily take far more than the 800 mA your solar panels put out. This would cause the voltage from the solar panels to drop and the panels would assume a bad battery and blink the warning.