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I recently to learned that you can wire the DC output of a solar charge controller directly to the power lugs of a Bitcoin miner PSU.

The power from the solar panels goes directly to the hash boards and if there isn't enough power, the PSU makes up the difference with ac power from the grid. It turned the PSU into off grid solar grid tie hybrid power source.

All solar power is totally utilized, no loss. It's magical to watch the power draw from the PSU ebb and flow with the power output of the solar charge controller.

This is technique is going to change the game here at the homestead as it will allow me to continue to expand the solar power production without having to get a larger inverter to fully utilize it. I can tie the additional solar power directly to the miners, skipping the batteries and inverter all together. Looking forward to showing this technique in action.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago 💬 3

my electrotechnik mind is not happy with this arrangement

there must surely be a voltage regulator in this picture somewhere

PSU is putting out some amount of power, meaning volts and amps of current

making a failover for power systems usually requires an accumulator somewhere in the picture, ie, transformer and capacitors

adapting to the flow usually takes logic and gates

i'm not sure you have got this

unless you have some kind of large capacitor buffer in the circuit

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ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

i'm just wondering how this works if the voltage is going into the PSU, which is a transformer and capacitor thing, where do you tap in your extra power... seems like it must have to be right on the capacitors because only that would not interfere with the voltage

if the solar array is loading the capacitors then they would not draw so much from the mains to charge and discharge into the bridge rectifier that produces the 12V current for the miner... that's the only place you could add extra current without disrupting it

does it actually work stable? as in, it doesn't pull power from the mains AC with the DC current from the array?

rev.hodl 1y ago 💬 1

The voltage regulator is the charge controller, when hooking it up to the PSU, it sees it as a 12v battery.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

So as long as your batteries are sufficient voltage I guess?

rev.hodl 1y ago 💬 1

Yes, if the batteries die and the sun is shining then I might be in trouble.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago 💬 1

probably just need a voltage triggered off switch that just turns all that side of the circuit off once it drops below the voltage the devices need

SatStackingPleb 1y ago

A single board can handle 100 amps. Just size the controllers appropriately