AT BEST, provided the Panel and Inverter can stay running, it would charge the PPS a lot slower than normal. Let's just assume that the 100w total is available at the PPS 120v input terminals... DeWalt says it needs 360w to charge at full speed. so you would be actually be charging at ~28% of full speed, meaning it would take 3.6 times longer to charge. The regular 4.0AH batteries take 2 hours to charge at the normal full power rate, so that equates to 7.2 hours with a 100w source.
The outputs are so much lower that I believe it will just trip out and not charge at all, but I'm not really sure.
Here is a scenario or two that Will Work Properly:
- 4x or 5x 100w solar panels, 400w inverter, PPS
- 1x or 2x 100w solar panels, battery bank (12v, 35a) 400w inverter, PPS
- PPS with lots of extra batteries
These are all "by the book", that is not saying you might get lucky and have a "too small" solar charger set up work as a "top off" setup. I'd be surprised if the PPS will charge 4 batteries at all with much less than full rated wattage. I will check the amazon link again, it had like 92 answered questions, maybe someone else asked the same thing?
IF...there was a DC input..then all that would be needed was a solar panel.
Yes, but it would need to be at least 24v or 2 panels in series. Then all the losses of the AC circuits would be eliminated as well! 200w of DC power would charge the Li-Ions pretty quickly, and if they were full, the panels would help run the PPS inverter circuit. DW needs to "engineer" that into the system ;)
they definitely need to consider solar.
before I got the PPS I had two small batteries and five tools.
I could work for several hours before the batteries went flat.
IF I had several batteries CHARGING (however slow), I could swap em out.
NEVER run out of juice.
Exactly!
You could just get like a Venom Charger, works from a DC source,
charges any voltage of any style or chemistry of battery. I think it needs 24v DC and it would charge at a rate depending on the wattage you supply by the number of panels?
wouldn't need it.
all the charging circuitry is already there.
Just need a connection.
I'm pretty sure (I used to be an electronic tech) that the voltage is stepped down from 120v to charge the leeetle bitty LIon cells (charging voltage is about four volts)
5 volts per cell is what they use, 4.2 is a fully charged Lithium Ion. I bet you could bypass the AC part and supply 25v to the charge buss and do it! :D Then the charge rate (speed) would be determined by the ampacity of the source.
Since you got the PPS for "free" it's OK to hack it, right? :D