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Ok. I work for an electrical systems automation company, and after asking around at work, I thought I'd seek advice from some people who are more focused on the solar side of things; I know what I'm trying to do is ugly, but the surface area of my project limits my options...
I have a 72V Ford Think NEV, the standard model, not the neighbor edition. My goal is to install a solar array as a trickle charger. I'm not expecting to replace wall-charging; I just want a solution that will get me an extra mile or two on top of the 10-15 miles I get from a charge when there are two people in the cart. I was hoping that a small solar array on top would be able to provide this.
The Problem:
I have 6 small solar panels, 6V @ 1W each. I've gone over the options I know about, and the best I can come up with is building two 36V battery/capacitor arrays that I can charge up from the panels, and then running those in series with a diode to the battery array... I think that's 'possible,' but I don't know, and I also suspect the system would require more interaction that I want to put in on a day-to-day basis; the goal is a passive charging solution, where the most I have to really do is switch it on or connect it when I pull the cart off the wall charger. I'm a computer programmer, though, so I only have the vaguest idea of what will work on paper and absolutely no idea of what might work in practice.
TL
R - I have a 36V solar array (6x 6V@1W), and I need to find a way to use that to trickle charge a 72V battery array in my golf cart, preferably as a passive system.
Any help at all will put me closer than I am right now. Thanks for your time reading this, and a happy holiday to anyone who finds there way here.
z
I have a 72V Ford Think NEV, the standard model, not the neighbor edition. My goal is to install a solar array as a trickle charger. I'm not expecting to replace wall-charging; I just want a solution that will get me an extra mile or two on top of the 10-15 miles I get from a charge when there are two people in the cart. I was hoping that a small solar array on top would be able to provide this.
The Problem:
I have 6 small solar panels, 6V @ 1W each. I've gone over the options I know about, and the best I can come up with is building two 36V battery/capacitor arrays that I can charge up from the panels, and then running those in series with a diode to the battery array... I think that's 'possible,' but I don't know, and I also suspect the system would require more interaction that I want to put in on a day-to-day basis; the goal is a passive charging solution, where the most I have to really do is switch it on or connect it when I pull the cart off the wall charger. I'm a computer programmer, though, so I only have the vaguest idea of what will work on paper and absolutely no idea of what might work in practice.
TL
R - I have a 36V solar array (6x 6V@1W), and I need to find a way to use that to trickle charge a 72V battery array in my golf cart, preferably as a passive system.Any help at all will put me closer than I am right now. Thanks for your time reading this, and a happy holiday to anyone who finds there way here.
z
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