I was out in my garage in Austin last summer soldering up a solar charge controller for an old phone battery pack. Forgot to check the polarity on the diode and hooked it up backwards - tiny little puff of smoke came off the board and I thought I killed the whole project. After letting it sit for an hour I swapped the diode right way around and it actually still works fine for charging my phone, though I keep a fire extinguisher nearby now. Anyone else had a brain fart with a component that ended up being recoverable?
Talked to a guy at the hardware store who said he gets 2 extra hours of charge on his garden lights by facing panels east instead of south, but I measured 20% less peak power that way. Which matters more for a small phone charger build - peak watts or hours of collection?
I had to choose between a 5V 6W panel and a 12V 10W panel for a portable phone charger I wanted to build last month. The 5V was smaller and cheaper at $12, so I went that route thinking it'd be simple. But even in full sun, it barely pushed 0.5A into my phone, and on cloudy days it was useless. My buddy used the 12V with a buck converter and gets a full charge in 2 hours. I should have spent the extra $8 and the hour to wire in a regulator. Has anyone else had luck pairing a 12V panel with their phone charger setup?
They had this tiny 10 watt panel hooked to a car battery that ran a fan and charged phones all weekend no problem. Has anyone else seen those cheap PWM controllers hold up better than MPPT for small builds?