6V SLA to Wemos D1R3 ESP8266

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

Hello,
I am having difficulties powering my WiFi Arduino-D1R3 with 6V Sealed Lead Acid battery. At the moment I have it connected to arduino via power jack(via solar controller). It works ok when day is sunny and runs through the night without a problem. Problem is when it is cloudy/rainy like yesterday and arduino stops sending the data over wifi at around 8PM, though I am pretty sure that the battery still has enough power. This arduino should run on this kind of battery(4,5Ah) for more than 30 hours without charging. And the day before yesterday was very sunny and the battery was full before the end of day(solar panels->12V, 9W). Also battery is charging even if it is cloudy, though slower.

So my question is if it is wrong to power my arduino over power jack, should I use voltage regulator and connect it to 5V pin?

2

I would use a switch mode regulator, more efficient than the onboard regulator. What is the power cunsumption of the project?

3

Power consumption is at peaks 115ma but it varies.

4

You are not giving it the minimum specified voltage, it will not operate properly and as it quits charging the voltage drops even lower. The best solution I can see is use a SEPIC converter and set the output to about 8V to power the Arduino. I use the internal regulator whenever possible because of the additional filtering. If you need more battery life you can connect it to the 5V after adjusting its output to 5V. The Sepic converter will be operating in the 90%+ range.

5

This topic was automatically closed 120 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.