Hi,
I'm looking to power my UNO using a battery supply and furthermore the possibility of using a solar powered rechargeable battery. Can anyone offer me advice on how to do so possibly from experience?
I know that it needs between 7 - 12 volts for a steady 5V output and avoid any damage to the board. I'm just not sure on the best way to implement using a battery to do so.
Thanks in advance
I posted some ideas here on running a Mega 2560 from battery power that I collected from a variety of sources. It should be applicable to an Uno as well. To get any reasonable amount of time out of a battery (unless it's really big), you need to take steps to reduce your power consumption.
Nick Gammon has a great blog on solar powered Arduino at https://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=12821
Thanks, this power reduction could be very useful!
I was more looking for the actual supply itself though for example the system set up for a battery and solar panel or something similar.
I haven't made one, but when I was considering it I think you need solar panels (obviously), a solar charging regulator and a battery (I was looking at sealed lead acid). Depending on what voltage all this works at, you might be outside the Arduino's recommended 7-12V, as even a 12V battery will probably be taking around 14V while charging. You may need another regulator for the Arduino that is capable of working with higher voltage. You may as well get a 5V switching regulator and then you can bypass the Arduino's internal regulator and save more power.
@jremington I got a lot of ideas from Nick Gammon's excellent post which I incorporated into my list, but I found some other ones as well. The best was to put the 16U2 USB chip into reset mode which saves 15mA.
Or use a Promini as you apparently don't need USB connectivity.