Need help wiring a solar panel to electric motor

[dogsnuts]

Hi everyone,
i want to make sure that when i wire this all up I am not going to start a fire :)

So, I've got a 4W 12V solar panel the unit produces up to 333mA
a 12V battery and a 12V DC 15 RPM High Torque Gear Box Electric Motor.

I'm a newbie so don't much about electronics. All i want is for the motor to run and not blow me up.
Can someone please walk me though what needs to be done, or what i need to buy if what I've got is wrong.

Thanks in advance

 

[sophiecentaur]

I guess that, to be on the safe side, you should put a 1A fuse on the lead to the battery, right next to the battery terminal. The solar panel won't be capable of "blowing up" anything but a car battery can supply hundreds of Amps into a short circuit, if one should occur and could melt any leads and start a fire. A low value fuse will take care of that risk.

 

[Jcouls29]

A few things would be important here. I agree with sophiecentaur that a fuse is very important. But more than that, get a Schottky diode for the solar panel (schottky because of low voltage drop). I don't know what kind you have. It may have one built into it. But be sure. You don't want the battery to back-feed into the panel. It will burn it up if you're not careful.

Also, a lot of this depends on how you're hooking it up. If you have a solar panel with a diode in series then the battery in parallel with a fuse in series (and a switch hopefully) and then the motor, you should be fine. It may be wise to post a schematic of what you're doing if possible. Panels can get expensive, so you don't want to blow a bunch up.

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Justin Coulston
justin.coulston@gmail.com
TheModernEngineer.blogspot.com