I Did something Stupid... Shorted Photon to 12+ volts... :(

Hi All,

So I’m in the process of building a PWM Solar Charge Controller, everything was working find and I was about to leave the Photon to control the change of the battery via the 40W panel I’ve got setup. Just before walking away I decided to move the circuit that deals with the charging… now wishing I hadn’t :frowning:

I managed to knock the photon causing it to touch the heatsink on one of the MOSFET’s (the heatsinks being live) that regular the 21/22 volts coming off of the solar panel.

Anyway there was much smoke as the sheath burned away on the ground wire between the Photon and the Proto Board.

The photon seems to be working, it boots, but it gets extremely hot really quickly (60 / 90 seconds) so for the time being I’ve unplugged it and put it to one side.
It seems to be running my usercode still, boots just as quick as normal and connects to my wifi, it just gets REALLY hot!

If I’ve killed it then fine, I’ve learnt from my mistake! But if there is something that I can do to save it (i’m thinking maybe i’ve upset the regular and its pulling way to much current over usb?) then I’m happy to get my soldering iron back out and see if I can rescue it.

Really appreciate any advice/words of wisdom :slight_smile:

Thanks.

John

You could try powering it from 3.3V directly, thus bypassing the regulator, if I’m not mistaken. That might help.

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Thanks, I’ll give it shout and report back