Hydro Power 9

A year and counting. This little project is still paying off, as I'm using it once again to keep the batteries topped off as the light disappears towards winter. To be fair, it didn't get run much over the summer, but it still seems to be holding together.

No improvements since the last post, I haven't even had an opportunity to take it down to the lower garden and try it at higher pressure. I do think about trying to put together a "linear current booster", essentially a buck/boost converter so that I can find the optimal running voltage for the plant and then convert that (whatever it turns out to be) into a charging current for the batteries. I do know that the plant puts out more current at voltages above 12 (13.5 - 15 V), but less when connected to the 24 volt system, and even less when the 24 volt system is full (~28 V). Somewhere between those two potentials is a "sweet spot" where the voltage and current curves intersect to produce the maximum number of watts.

Now that I've written it down, it sounds like a lot of trouble for a device that will still produce less power than a couple of night lights can consume...