Question by oakwhiz:
How do you connect a solar panel and wind generator in parallel?

I have an ~18v solar panel and a ~15v wind turbine. Sometimes one generates more voltage than the other. How would I get both of them to charge one ~12v battery? I cannot just connect them in parallel with diodes, because in that case, only the higher voltage source gets used. Is there a special charge controller circuit that will do this?


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Answer by David
There are controllers to do this, but they are very expensive. Why not two batteries, one for each generator and a battery ‘change over’ switch’ on the output. When one battery is low switch to the other.

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