I am planning on connecting a solar panel to a 3.6v battery?
Question:
Answer:
Solar panel voltages start at 12 volts, so even the smallest available solar panel will do it.
You will need to put a resistor in series with the battery and the panel. The resistor rating will depend on how fast you want to charge the battery, and how high a charge rate the battery can stand without getting overheated. Without a sophisticated charge regulating device, it will be necessary to disconnect the charging circuit when the battery is fully charged.
Not a simple question. You need to push a current into the battery but you are working from a source with an output that varies with sunlight. And efficiency matters -- you don't want to lose power while converting the variable solar cell's output to what the battery charger requires. For this, you probably need a high-efficiency DC-to-DC converter that operates from a range of input voltages. Fortunately, they exist as integrated circuits.
Unfortunately, you can't just buy some chip and wire it up -- there is some design work. There are many application notes that will help. See: http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes10.cfm/a... for a nice index of many battery charger app notes.
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