The ctek xs 3600 have 4 charge modes:

• Desulphation: pulses with high volt/amp is made
• Bulk: after 80% charge, the charger deliver a constant current until battery i fully charged
• Absorpsion: charge up to 100%, current will fall but the voltage will be constant
• Puls: this is a puls charge mode, it maintenace the battery, a keep it in goog condition. This mode charge between 95% and 100%. This is the mode used when charger is connected in months.

The ctek xs 3600 just have one issue, i don’t start up in the charge mode you selected, next time it is turned on.

To overcome this issue, i use a AtTiny85

AtTiny 85 pinout:

ATtiny Pin 1: RSEST
ATtiny Pin 2:
ATtiny Pin 3:
ATtiny Pin 4: GND
ATtiny Pin 5: Connected to ctek mode selector trough the 4066 analog switch
ATtiny Pin 6:
ATtiny Pin 7:
ATtiny Pin 8: 5 V

Ctek xs 3600 230 volt/110 volt AC input is connected to the Electric vehicle’s AC charger connector

This picture show a salvaged Pentium 4 cooling plate with fan mounted on top of it.

The complete MPPT solar charger is mounted to the cooling plate, using a aluminium U profile, where the MOSFETs and voltage regulator are placed.

The picture above shows the aluminium U profile, as You can se it is a few millimeters to wide..

To complete the mppt solar charger project, i still need to do some work with a plastic cabinet, and also i will make some kind of temperature controlled PWM speed adjustment for the fan.

Update 20-12-2014: this arduino mppt charger shield is tested and works withTim Nolans version of the arduino sketch. The placement of the mosfet’s on th

e circuit board was designed to fit to a Aluminium U profile.

Just make sure you don’t try to cool down the power from a 9 map solar panel, with this small aluminium Profile.

To do that, you need a bigger cooling plate. You can find a link in the article below for an example of how to use a salvaged pentium 4 cooling plate.

This project is inspired but the original Peak Power Tracker Battery Charger Project made by Tim Nolan. Unfortunally he’s website is down, so i will try to recover the specs and bilding material from his page.

The mppt solar charger with arduino is designed so a 12V (20 volt peak) solar panel  can do the charging of a 12V lead acid battery.

Tim Nolan used a Arduino Duemilanove development board, in this project i have used both Duemilanove and Uno (r3) as the basic platform.

Tim Nolan used a Arduino Protoshield Kit for he’s development, i did that in my first version, but i became more and more happy for this project, and desided to make my own pcb layout based on Tim Nolan’s original project.

The project original consist of a number of files, most still have fully working link

• PPT Charger schematic (EagleCAD), this link still works: ArduinoSolar.pdf
• PPT Charger Hardware Description: link to ArduinoSolarHardware.txt broken, but this stll works:  ArduinoSolarHardware.rtf
• PPT Charger Parts List still works : ArduinoSolarPartsList.txt
• PPT Charger Software (the original Arduino Sketch by Tim Nolan) is still online: ppt.pde
• PPT Charger Photos links are still working : Duemilanove and Protoshield, Prototshield back, Protoshield front

He made a article on http://www.homepower.com on how Peak Power Tracking works. The original article is still online: Peak Power Tracking article.pdf

More cooling options for te arduino mppt solar charger

Open source pcb made for Tim nolan’s mppt solar charger

This is a version rc1 of the pcb, and i will try using irl540 MOSFET instead of irfz44

Download eagle pcb and schematic source files:

Arduino MPPT shield schematic and pcb eagle files for rc1

Free thanks

This Arduino suntracker /solar tracker called: ‘Sun-Trackuino-Delsol’.

I use a Arduino with nuelectronics ethershield which is used a few times in the past as solar data logger and stokerlogger / controller with Arduino is a WebClient (Remember use ARDUINO IDE 0018 to ethershield from nuelectronics! ).

Unfortunately this shield is discontinued but you can use any other arduino ethernet shield but you must change the code.

I also have a version of the suntracker sketch without webserver

The picture here shows fumble shield PCB and Arduino can be glimpsed beneath.

Top t.v. sits a polulo acs714 flow sensor. Middle T. H. seen optokoplerne and motor control chip. In the right version replaced the chip by a mosfet H-bridge.

Forrest t.v. seen a 5 volt regulator with USB plug for charging the smartphone with the three small solar cells.

About code and hardware for suntracker beta

It is not expected to Arduino sketch can be downloaded below, is used for purposes other than this model which simulated sensors and actuator are made with a small gear motor and made of Lego technics. Hardware a been struggling the same on a fumble print. Perhaps, make a arduino / nabduino solar tracker shield at a time.

The video below shows what beta sketch can

For suntracker not continually face and running with actuator, has introduced a delay of X minutes between each time it is allowed to move the actuator to either east or west. For this there is used

dateTime library for arduino.

Ind til videre kører trackeren, der er et øst og vest endestop, og to aktive LDR der søger efter solens retning.

Actuator kan stoppes med en knap, og der kan via url sendes manuelle kommandoer om at gå mod øst eller vest .

Dette er en lille beta arduino sketch (til IDE0018)

Version 31-12-2012

Read techmind.dk GENERAL Disclaimer before you continue.

This version 1.1 if for single coil trafo’s also i made a prototype v.1.0 printed circuit board for trafo’s with center input.

Schematics for the arduino inverter

The component placement of the Printed Circuit Board

The arduino inverter PCB  Toplayer

PCB from the solder side

The eagle PCB file for inverter with arduino can be downloaded here

The original Arduino Sketch for the inverter. Thanks to bristolwatch  for this great project. Techmind version will be published latter.