Making use of a 16 Watt Panel

System

Hi All,

I've been given a 16 watt unisolar panel. It says max output is 30 volts and 1.5 amps. I would like to use it to power a 12 volt device that I have. I was wondering if there is a way to do this without having a battery in the mix. In other words I want to run the panel through some kind of device (voltage regulator?) to convert it to 12 volts and run the device directly off the resulator's output. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks ahead of time!

n3qik

Re: Making use of a 16 Watt Panel

Yes it can be done. How much current dose the device need?

System2

Re: Making use of a 16 Watt Panel

And is there a start up surge needed by this device? Or momentary surges while in operation?
May we ask what the device is? Knowing that, would reduce the guesswork on our part.
Cheers
Wayne

mike95490

Re: Making use of a 16 Watt Panel

The simple method is to use a common 3 terminal linear voltage regulator, with a heat sink.
You will loose a lot of power to the heat sink (about 8 of your 16 watts) but you will get the desired voltage for less than $10 (regulator IC, heat sink, caps, proto-box). The more efficient method, with a DC-DC regulator, will be much more expensive.