Solar charger: Photon + Battery Shield + Battery + Solar panel

#1

Hi!

I’m building a solar charger. Right now I have:

  1. Battery shield with a Photon (most of the time sleeping)
  2. 3.7V battery connected to the LiPo connector
  3. Solar panel connected to the VIN and GND pins

battery-barrel-solar

Now I want to charge an external device (5V), like a mobile phone. For this, I’m using a PowerBoost (Adafruit):

adafruit-chargers-powerboost-1000-basic-5v-usb-boost-1000ma-from-1-8v-27026367502_x700
adafruit-chargers-powerboost-1000-basic-5v-usb-boost-1000ma-from-1-8v-27026367502_x700.jpg932x700 143 KB

The PowerBoost is connected to VIN and GND pins. The idea is to convert the ~3.7V from VIN (battery powered) into 5V.

It works!

Here’s my diagram:

image
image.jpg884x707 205 KB

#2

@pedromorfeu - great little setup. I had a similar set up (but with the Particle Battery Shield) and had a Particle living for a full year on the windowsill, without external power (so living off the day light, and with enough battery to survive the night).

I put it to sleep for most of the time, woke up every 15 minutes to take battery measurements, send to Thingspeak and then back to sleep. Worked a dream.

Enjoy and post further pics.

What is your set up doing, is it charging your phone or is the Photon running other clever code?

Neal.

#3

Thanks! Well, the purposes are to charge devices out of solar power and, at the same time, power the Photon that is taking some measurements (soil moisture) from a small garden.

I’ll keep you posted.

#4

Just got my iPod charged!

#5

Hi Pedro, what solar panel are you using? thanks!

#6

A pretty basic one: https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/solar-panel-1-watt