Many solar-panel-powered applications need only pulses of power to operate. Systems for data collection or measurement sampling frequently need to turn on, perform a measurement or some other task, ...

A German research group is trying to determine whether the combination of solar and storage with direct coupling and without the aid of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) electronics is feasible.

A few years ago, [Lukas Fässler] needed a solar charge controller and made his own, which he has been improving ever since. The design is now mature, and the High Efficiency MPPT Solar Charger is full ...

Fig 1. The multiplierless MPPT system incorporates a buck converter and a control stage. R SHU and the current sense amplifier, U5, sense the system’s output power. Fig 2. Using a perturb-and-observe ...