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Hello!
Hope this is the right forum. Lost my long post, going to truncate, sorry if I miss something important.
I would like to build a simple (if possible) circuit that would allow a 5V/500mA panel to charge some AA storage batteries (either 3 or 4 NiMh batteries with 2300 or a very optimistic 3000mA rating), prevent overcharge, and switch on 3-5V rated LED's when panel output voltage drops below the storage battery voltage. I am concerned with overcharge as I need to make sure that during winter I am getting enough charge, and summer I'm not going over.
I've searched, I only seem to find fairly complex 12V systems that don't seem to lend themselves to simple scaling down. I'm sure a schematic of what I want is out there, I just can't seem to find it.
I've got a couple of the garden spotlight setups, that don't use a photocell to control charge/discharge, simply panel voltage, and essentially I'd like to replicate that, just at a slightly higher voltage and adding overcharge protection.
Thanks!
Hope this is the right forum. Lost my long post, going to truncate, sorry if I miss something important.
I would like to build a simple (if possible) circuit that would allow a 5V/500mA panel to charge some AA storage batteries (either 3 or 4 NiMh batteries with 2300 or a very optimistic 3000mA rating), prevent overcharge, and switch on 3-5V rated LED's when panel output voltage drops below the storage battery voltage. I am concerned with overcharge as I need to make sure that during winter I am getting enough charge, and summer I'm not going over.
I've searched, I only seem to find fairly complex 12V systems that don't seem to lend themselves to simple scaling down. I'm sure a schematic of what I want is out there, I just can't seem to find it.
I've got a couple of the garden spotlight setups, that don't use a photocell to control charge/discharge, simply panel voltage, and essentially I'd like to replicate that, just at a slightly higher voltage and adding overcharge protection.
Thanks!