Solar charger for tool batteries.
Solar charger for tool batteries.
I want to make a solar charger for tool batteries. I'm thinking plug a standard AC dual 5 amp 20v battery charger into an inverter charged via a solar battery bank. Enough to charge four batteries during the day. That's not in the budget so I'm going to start small with just one battery at a time (600watts?). Maybe two batteries a day if I can afford it.
Who here has built such a battery bank? What advice do you have? What handy online calculators do you recommend? Is there a spreadsheet available that is better than a calculator? In the past I would have looked for those myself but search engines are totally useless now. Would you rather have one big battery hooked up to the inverter or a bank of smaller batteries in series or parallel?
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Start with a 12v version of the tool battery charger instead, then you eliminate the need for the inverter. Just do a simple solar charge controller and battery for power.
This won't work for most tool chargers as they are 110-240v usually.
I know for a fact Dewalt, Milwaukee, and Makita offer 12 volt versions of the chargers for their power tool batteries.
But not Hercules. Which is my default after my Makita stuff got stolen out of a work truck.
The problems I have with that:
- most power tools do not have 12v chargers
- that limits the ability to charge multiple types of tool batteries without having a dedicated 12v charger for each brand of batteries. I want to be able to plug in a Makita, Hercules or DeWalt charger into the inverter so that I'm not brand locked.
- if the 12v too battery charger dies the whole system is useless. By plugging a standard AC charger into the inverter you can pull a backup charger you pick up at a pawn shop and just plug it in.