This charge controller/timer has been designed to control the operation of the alone street lighting systems powered by photovoltaic solar energy, it uses high reliability microcontroller technology. The system allows manual selection of the period of time that the light will be switched on (from 15 minutes to 8 hours in the standard model, 30 minutes to 16 hours upon request), and it can modify this time depending on the amount of energy available in the battery. The level of charge of the battery is thermally compensated following the battery manufacturer's indications.
A light indicator (LED) shows the state of charge of the battery.
The operation of the luminary is as follows: when the sun sets it switches on, and it will remain on until any of the following conditions are met:
Another option is to install a double level ballast with a double level charge controller: after the defined time is finished the luminary does not switch off, but it reduces the amount of light produced as a percentage and the consumption as an even higher percentage. One or two hours before daybreak the luminary reverts back to the original illumination level.
In double luminary systems, one of them switches on and remains in that state for the whole night. The other one is switched on for a predefined time, and can then be it switched back on (or not) one or two hours before daybreak. Alternatively, the functions of the two luminaires can be alternated from one night to the next, and in this way the operation time and depletion will be the same for both luminaries.
