Solar Panel Mod Controller

Great idea. How much volts can that thing manage?

 

Will this mod go with the prius solar trim package or bring your own solar panel install ?

 

Keep us posted on the voltage conversion, interested to see the frankstein solar setup.

 

Why does it say "RS232" and "5V2A" on the front.
This may not be what you think it is.

 

Probably says RS232 because nobody but standards wonks ever noticed when the name changed to EIA-232 in nineteen freaking eighty six, or to TIA-232 in 2012.

 

And in addition to that, it also takes input from a solar panel and has a "smart charger" output for 12 V ??

If so, it sounds like a good value.......for $15.

 

How is this coming along?

 

As this thread mentioned earlier projects but didn't link to them, I thought it would be helpful to keep the info on the topic kind of together, so here are links to Michael Cline's solution from June of 2013, which was pretty slick. and vallesj's very nicely documented setup from a year later.

It seems I had missed those earlier (well, I didn't have my Gen 3 in 2013 or 2014, so I wasn't looking). Both of those projects seem easy and successful enough to maybe go on my "stuff I should've done already" list.

 

OK, gotta ask.
Seems like I remember that the factory solar panel only is capable of something like 7 watts, to run the tiny little vent fan.
That's not going to be enough to do anything useful.
Might not even help keep the 12 V battery charged.

 

The "tiny little vent fan" is the same one behind the glove box that runs for your heat and A/C, and is really not as tiny as all that.

I could see posting some shoot-from-the-hip guesswork about how impractical the idea is, if it did not happen, you know, two posts after a collection of links from earlier, documented, measured, implementations of the same idea.

Edit: ... which also include this thread, which started speculatively, years before vallesj's hack, but then includes three more people following suit (four now, counting this).

I think I'm going to go with the cheapo buck converter, as in Michael Cline's original approach, rather than a fancier solar controller; in my case, it's because I also have some accessories behind a low-voltage disconnect that turns them on when voltage rises above 13.2 (normally indicating the car's been made READY). I could adjust the cheapo buck converter to something lower (say 13.1, as Michael Cline did), to avoid having it and the LVD start playing games with each other. The more purpose-built solar converters all seem to have higher output setpoints that wouldn't fit in my picture.