Basic Setup Guide. browndoggadgets.com. 12V Solar Charge Controller with Dual USB. Dull Introduction

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1 Solar Charge Controller with USB Basic Setup Guide browndoggadgets.com In this guide we will show you how to do a basic setup for all three of our Solar Charge Controllers with USB. Models Covered 6V Solar Charge Controller with USB 12V Solar Charge Controller with USB 12V Solar Charge Controller with Dual USB Dull Introduction We love our Solar Charge Controllers. They re cheap and easy to use. They re also very bare bones. Luckily they re a breeze to setup, and the entire process can be done in under five minutes. This little guide will walk you through how to do a basic setup of a 6V Solar Charge Controller with USB. This setup process is the exact same for our other two models, the only difference being some of the other parts you ll use.

2 What You ll Need Here are the basic parts you ll need for this project. 1 BrownDogGadgets Solar Charge Controller 1 Large lead acid battery (or similar type) 1 Large solar cell or a solar panel Wire or connectors Optional Soldering Iron and Solder Toggle Switch

3 Selecting a Solar Panel Depending on the project you re doing you may wish to use a 6V setup or a 12V setup. This will determine which type of the Solar Charge Controllers, Solar Panel, and Batteries you ll need. Sunlight is not a consistent form of power. Depending on the day, weather, and your location on the planet you may get wide ranges of solar energy. As a general rule you want to choose a solar panel that is 1.5 times the Voltage of your setup. If you re running a 12V system, you want a solar panel that is at least 18Vs. If you re running a 6V setup, you want a solar cell that is at least 9Vs. The extra voltage is there so that even on days when conditions are poor you ll still be getting the minimum amount of voltage necessary for charging. Solar Panels are also rated in Amperages (amps) of power. This tells you how much current is coming into your setup. The more amps of power you have coming in, the faster your battery will charge. For this guide we ll be using a small 3.3 Watt Solar Panel. It brings in about 10 Volts and 0.5 Amps of power. This is perfect for our 6V setup. It is a model number SPM003M by Solartech Power, Inc.

4 Batteries These kind of large setups require large batteries. You do not want to use AAs on this kind of project. Typically people use Lead Acid batteries, which are cheap and rechargeable. These can be found locally or off of a variety of websites. Like our Solar Panels, you need to choose a battery that is right for your project. For a 12V setup you need a 12V battery. For a 6V setup, you need a 6V battery. Batteries also list their Amperage in the form of Amp hours (Ah). This tells you how many amps it can output and for how long. A 4Ah battery can output 4 Amps for one hour, or 1 Amp for 4 hours. Just take the number of amps you need to run your project and then divide by the Ah rating of your battery. This will tell you about how long your project will be able to run off the battery when full. The more Amp hours a battery has it has the longer the battery will last. For this example we will be using a small 6V 4.5Ah battery. It is a model UB645 Universal Battery.

5 Understanding Your Charge Controller Each of the Charge Controllers we sell operates the same way. They have a variety of inputs as well as LEDs for status. Bellow we have listed what each one does. Status LEDs (As copied off our very bare bones Chinese manual) Red - Flat Battery Amber - Low Charge Green - Good Charge Green Flashing- Full Charge The first LED is for solar, when the LED is red, it means the solar panel is working; when the LED is green, it means the battery has been full charged. The second LED is for the battery. Ehen the LED is red, it means the battery has no power; when the LED is green, it means the battery has power. The third and fourth LED is for device, when the LED is red, it means device is working, has output. When the LED isn't lit, it means that there is no output. Rear Hookups B+ and B- = Battery Connections S+ and S- = Solar Connections L+ and L- = Load Connections (what you re powering) K1 and K2 = USB Hookup

6 Example Setup Parts 6V Solar Charge Controller with USB 10V Solar Panel 6V 4.5Ah Lead Acid Battery Alligator Clip Wires

7 6V is on the left, 12V Dual USB on the right Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the hookup spots on your controller. Before doing anything, take a moment and look at the different hookup spots on your controller. S is for Solar, B is for Battery, L is for Load, and K is for USB.

8 Step 2: Hook up your battery While it really doesn t matter what order you hook things up in, we re starting with the battery. We ve hooked up a red alligator clip to the Positive (red) point on our battery and a black alligator clip to the Negative (black) point on our battery. We then hook those clips up to the Battery (B+ and B- ) points on our charge controller. Red for positive and black for negative. Done. If we were making a permanent setup, we would use a soldering iron, long wires, and probably some terminal hook ups (which can be found at any hardware store). You should not use alligator clips for long- term projects because you re eventually going to get a short.

9 Easy breezy.

10 Step Three: Hook up the solar panel. This works just like the battery. Hook up the positive point on your solar panel to the positive point (S+) on your Charge Controller. Hook up the negative point of your solar cell to the negative point (S- ) on your charger controller. (I used white for positive and yellow for negative in the photos below.)

11 Step four: Relax To be honest, you ve not got your solar panel charging up your battery. In fact if you only want to charge up your battery, you re all done. Step five: Hooking up a load Many people may wish to hook up external devices to the charge controller. Such things as fans, lights, and pumps can be run directly off the 6V DC output points labeled L+ and L-. If you wish to run AC devices you ll need an inverter. Step six: Hooking up USB The nice thing about these charge controllers is that they re set up for USB, which many of today s gadgets run off of. Camera, cell phone, mp3 players, and many others can be run from the USB port. We have to do one thing though to turn on this feature.

12 To turn USB on you just need to connect the K1 and the K2 wires. In the pictures below I accomplish this by holding the wires together. If you wish to do this in a permanent project you ll probably want to wire these up to a switch of some kind. In the photos below I ve got an old ipod Nano hooked up to the USB. The battery on the Nano is completely toast, so it has to get power from an outside source such as our charger controller.

13 Just connect K1 and K2 and the ipod turns on. The End So that's about it. No too much else to say. If you re going to use this outside you probably want to stick the charge controller in a waterproof box along with the battery.