ABSTRACT
This paper presents an efficient low cost charge and discharge controller for solar lighting system. The charge controller ensures that the battery is not overcharged or discharged below a certain limit, and thus prevents the battery from being damaged. The proposed charge controller includes a microcontroller based single switch DC-DC converter and incorporates an effective charge control algorithm to increase the life of batteries. The charge controller is proficient in preventing battery overcharge/dis-charge, charging at high temperature, indicating battery status, load control functions and monitoring power and energy. Further the charge controller is protected from various abnormal conditions. The charge controller supplying stand alone lighting load is implemented using Arduino nano and the results are reported.
