Hi all,
I am currently working on a project and it is almost done. I am making a rc airplane that is primarily battery powered, but solar cells are added to increase flight time. I am not going for any records or anything, will mainly be trying to fly during the best parts of the day and see how long I can go, maybe 2 hours (the plane will go about 1 hour as it is now). The plane is built and the cells will be wired up soon, I am just not sure what is the best way to connect the solar array to the battery. Right now it is battery->esc->motor. And so now I am thinking it will go like solar->mppt/charge regulator->battery->esc->motor. Much like Tony's diagram in the Solar Car discussion. I guess my concern is I will be using lithium-polymer batteries instead of the capacitors you guys were using on the cars. Is this a problem? I currently have a 3S4P lipo 8000mah 11.1v battery, the solar array will consist of 28 cells: Voc = .623V, Isc = 8.24A, Vmpp = .516V, Impp = 7.71A. These are factory specs so are of course in ideal conditions (1000W/m2 AM 1.5). I was looking at Genasun MPPT's (GV-9li) and they told me those would work for my application, but I guess I am not 100% convinced. Moreover, a GV-9li comes with a fairly steep price. I was thinking something no more and $100USD. Another plus is that I could get it ASAP since this is the last issue holding up my project.
DB

