I have a small compressor that I'd like to run off a deep-cycle battery which will be connected to a couple of solar panels through a charge controller. There will be an additional microcontroller of some kind to control the cycling of the compressor, monitor voltage, turn the compressor off at night and offer some hysteresis.
I'm reading that for any reasonable DC load that it's no probem to connect the charge controller and load across the same battery and things will be ok, but I'm not finding much on running a motor as a load. I know motors are an inductive load, and could potentially damage components not rated for the high-current on motor startup and motors sometimes have capacitors in their starters to fix the phase problem, but I can't figure out how to either buy or build the components I need to make sure I won't kill the charge controller or other components.
Here's some specs:
- Compressor, 12V motor, 23A max, 228 Watts
- Deep Cycle 12V battery
- 60A 4-stage PWM Charge Controller, compatible with 12 or 24V systems
- 2 solar panels, each 275W, 38V open, 32V rated, 8.7A
The plan is to run the compressor on a cycle to maximize run-time with the available power coming from the panels. Will the motor loading kill the charge controller? Is there a capacitice starter circuit I can use to make this work, or is there a better charging management system I should be looking for? Should I be looking at MPTT or some other difference in charge controller type to make this work?
Feel free to tell me if I'm way off on any part of the system.