Solar Powered Ryobi 18V Battery Charger - Direct DC Input - Part 1

Part 2 here    • Solar Ryobi 18V Battery Charger Part ...   First part showing only ENGINEERING work. What happens when a solar panel plugs into a Ryobi 18V charger? VLOG about modifying a Ryobi 18v battery charger to be powered directly from a 100 Watt solar panel. In this first part I only got as far as opening the charger and doing some engineering work.

It is possible to charge an 18V power tool battery from a solar panel, the safest way is using modified OEM charger and a CC-CV DC-DC converter circuit. In this video I installed a CC-CV DC Boost converter inside the OEM Ryobi charger. This provides complete control of the voltage and current supply. In addition to that it allows a variety of DC sources to be connected without harming the battery or charger - including 12V solar panels that cannot fully charge the battery on their own.

Testing of this charger has shown its performance to be solid. Adjustable voltage even allows optional "storage" charging. This feature ought to be in all OEM chargers by default, but as of now it isn't. A CC-CV circuit grants a lot of flexibility.

Had to make this video in 2 parts because it's really long. Hope you enjoy the video, thanks for watching. -DDSolar

Update 4-2023 still have the charger and it works great.

My Ryobi solar powered soldering iron, if you're interested :)    • Solar Powered Ryobi Soldering Iron - ...  

///Parts list for this video - support the channel - optional. These are affiliate links and I may earn a tiny commission. Thank you :)
250W DC-DC Boost Converter https://amzn.to/3MSKx3k
Quality 5.5x2.1mm jack (metal) https://amzn.to/3MsRDKJ

#offgrid #offgridsolarpowersystem #offgridsolar #offgridandongrid #ryobi #ryobitools #ryobination