Photon + Power Shield + Battery + Solar Panel = not charging

Troubleshooting
1

Hi All,

I currently have the Photon connected to the Power Shield which has the 3.7v LiPO battery and a Adafruit Large 6V 3.4W Solar panel connected. My Photon is currently set up to sleep 21 hours of the day, waking up from 10am and going to into deep sleep mode at 1pm. I’m testing the setup on my desk where the solar panel is sitting underneath my desk lamp (Halogen). For some reason, it does not seem that the battery is charging. So, a couple of questions:

  1. Is a halogen lamp enough for a solar panel?
  2. Does the power shield charge the battery when the Photon is in deep sleep?
  3. How can I monitor the various voltages, i.e. Solar power input voltage, battery charge?

Thanks!

2

The Halogen lamp is not enough to properly charge the battery. Even under 1000w HID lights the solar panel output will be way less than you would expect.

Place the panel in a window where the sun is shining if you don’t want to go outside and that should work much better. Outside with no sunlight obstructions is obviously best for the solar panel.

I also read somewhere that there is no LED that lights up when solar charging I think. So you will have to monitor battery voltage and SOC to see if its going up or down when you are testing the solar panel.

Also there is a Library in the Online IDE that has the code for reading battery voltage and SOC. See below:

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3

Thank you! I was thinking there wasn’t enough UV/IR coming from the Halogen bulb, which this solar panel generates power at optimal outputs. I’ll give your suggestion a try!

4

I added to my original post this in case you missed it:

I also read somewhere that there is no LED that lights up when solar charging I think. So you will have to monitor battery voltage and SOC to see if its going up or down when you are testing the solar panel.

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5

I do see that with USB power, a red LED is lit near the connector. In addition, the battery has a blue LED lit with USB power. When USB power is disconnected, and there is enough light, the solar panel connector has a small blue light next to it (I’m assuming this means that power is coming in from the solar panel).

6

I’m not sure since I do not own the the power shield but I’m sure somebody on here can help confirm that if the docs do not already.

Power Shield docs here: https://docs.particle.io/datasheets/photon-shields/#power-shield

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