Electron not charging on VIN/LI+ (Solar power)

Troubleshooting
21

I believe the Electron and Boron use the same PMIC, but I’m not sure about the remainder of the power scheme.
For a Boron (and I assume an Electron), with a 6V panel you will benefit from setting the powerSourceMinVoltage to 4840 and allow DPDM to manage the Panel to prevent the output voltage from collapsing. Any setpoint for Charge Current becomes insignificant as the PMIC changes the current to maintain the Panel’s voltage (min of 4.84V) resulting in the highest possible charging current that the panel supports at any given time (based on the sunlight).

[EDIT]
Assuming you remove the other gadgets and operate with a Li-po and 6V panel attached directly to the Electron
[/EDIT]

2 Likes
23

Adding

SystemPowerConfiguration conf;
conf.powerSourceMinVoltage(4840);
int res = System.setPowerConfiguration(conf); 
Log.info("setPowerConfiguration=%d", res);

to the setup worked!
Thanks so much for your help.

2 Likes
24

Congrats.
I believe PMIC are “sticky”, so previous changes you made might still be in play behind the scene.

You might play around with resetting to the default configuration prior to making your Calls, if things ever get squirrely.
I think this should reset to default :
System.setPowerConfiguration(SystemPowerConfiguration()); but I could be wrong.

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