Monitoring solar panels:-

Charge controllers are designed to regulate and protect batteries from overcharging and deep discharge.




Above is a very basic model and perfectly adequate for solar panels rated up to 4 Amps and cost around £20.




Above is a more sophisticated model that has a limited battery status feature, this one costs around £32.

These small controllers/regulators are readily available and can even cost as low as £10, there are many types and makes readily available.



Other pages to help you with the installation are:-

	How to wire up a basic system Is your battery bank correctly wired up?
	The Big Live Experiment See how our 27w solar panel performs under live conditions
	Battery care
	Looking after a leisure battery
	Solar circuits

To communicate with us over technical issues please use the Solar Chat Forum, also take a look at the Solar Q&A page.

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Global Warming - it's why we are making changes to our way of life!

David Bellamy has a very interesting article on global warming where he gives another point of view, Read the article