Hi,
I am trying to make a solar control with my aurdino and came across this buck converter on falstad. I have a 40v panel and want to pull it down to 12v or 5v. I hooked it all up with roughly the same components. When i measure the voltage it is only 1v. Any idea whats wrong?
Solar panels act primarily as current sources, not voltage sources, and don't work well or at all with DC-DC converters.
Use solar panels to charge batteries instead, and have the circuit draw from the battery.
How do they convert the 40v to the 12v to charge the batteries?
Hi,
Google;
arduino PV charge controller
And read how its done.
Tom.... 
In a properly designed system, current is regulated.
Hello again,
I thought about what you said about
and drew a simple diagram. The solar panels current is controlled and charges the batteries that are in series.
But how do you get the 48v of the batteries to 12v for the inverter?
Do you have to get a buck converter to do that?
Do you just use one battery ( 12v ) for one inverter, and have 4 inverters on each battery?
Any other ideas and explanations would be greatly appreciated 
.
Thanks in advance.
Hi,
How many watts of solar PV panels have you got?
Can you please post a link to specs/data of the panels?
What power rating is your inverter and what size are your batteries?
Thanks... Tom...
Use a 48V inverter instead. They are produced for various multiples of 12V batteries.
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