Is this 6v battery appropriate to run an Arduino?

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

I am totally new to this.

I'm trying to cobble together a simple way to keep an Arduino powered in an outdoor location. I have a large sealed lead acid battery (specifically UB645 Universal Battery 6v 4.5Ah) lying around. Can I use that to power my Arduino?

I also happen to have a 1.5w solar panel. Can I connect the solar panel to the battery and then connect the battery to the Arduino? Would that work?

Thanks for any help.

2
  1. Yes, although you may need a separate 5 volt low-drop out regulator and power the Arduino through the "5V" terminal.
  2. If the solar panel puts out > 7.5 volts in full sun, it will charge the lead-acid battery. You need a reverse blocking diode between the panel and battery, so that the battery won't discharge through the panel during the dark.
3

Skadar:
I'm trying to cobble together a simple way to keep an Arduino powered in an outdoor location. I have a large sealed lead acid battery (specifically UB645 Universal Battery 6v 4.5Ah) lying around. Can I use that to power my Arduino?

Yes... and no.

You can't connect it to the power socket because that needs more then 7.4V to work.

You can't connect it directly to the 5V pin because 6V is too much.

You need something to drop it down to 5V then you can connect it to the 5V pin. A voltage regulator with a "dropout voltage" of less than 1V will do the trick. Search google for "5v ldo regulator" and find one you like.

4

Many (most?) current Arduinos use a low-dropout 5V regulator. Check which type yours has. Such an Arduino will run quite happily from 6V applied to the Vin pin, provided you are not drawing too much current from the +5V pin. They will not run well from 6V applied to the barrel jack, because there is an extra diode in series with the barrel jack for reverse polarity protection.

EDIT: However, not all LDO regulators are created equal. For example, the Uno uses a NCP1117, which claims to be a low-dropout regulator, but has a typical dropout voltage of more than 0.9V even at no load. So I can't recommend running a Uno from 6V. If you use this instead http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/ADP3338.pdf then you can run quite happily from 6V because the dropout voltage is only 190mV even at 1A.

5

I have similar battery. I also have one 9v 3W panel, which I was planning to use with this

"Juta CMP-03 3A 6V:3A 6V without light and timer control,just charge and discharge"

But I was wondering how big battery and panel I would need to run at least one hour per day:

  • tplink 703
  • usb 3G modem huawei e220
  • arduino mega 2560 with ethernet shield 5100, and temperature & maybe other small sensors

TPLINK 703: This router is standardly powered via USB at 5V. The voltage regulator
inside is unknown, but its input voltage should be at least between 3.7V - 5.5V,
but not over 5.5V. The device will get damaged at too high voltages*. Maximum current
draw at 5V is 185mA (OpenWrt boot), average current draw with WiFi at 18dBm is 100mA,
without WiFi 80mA. Hence the average router power consumption is 0.5W, which is incredibly low.
Power consumption will be higher if a USB device is attached to its USB port

I was planning to use this to monitor temperature of lake water. So maybe there could be a timer between battery and arduino & tplink (not sure how to build such, or buy ready made module). I mean after measurements it could switch itself off,

Or maybe better to use some smaller arduino like Nano or Mini Pro and gsm/gprs-shield sim900?