Hello Arduino Forums!
Well this will be my first circuit ever that I will be creating myself. I want to create a solar powered USB remote control charger. I've looked over some basic solar panel USB charging circuits and they're very easy to understand.
I have NOT completely learned about the remote control I'm going to be working with, nor have I ordered any of the parts yet because I do not want to commit just yet without understanding fully what I'm getting into. I want to document my journey through my first circuit and maybe create something along the way.
I'm thinking about using an arduino as a microcontroller for keeping track of things like overheating and when the remote is fully charged.
I want to either have the remote use the solar panel as the permanent source of energy or use it to recharge the AAA batteries that are already inside the remote. This is where the arduino would be nice to have. I could hook up thermistors to the batteries which would read the measure the heat and relay the information to the arduino and based on high/low readings would turn the solar panel on or off based on the safety margins of the batteries.
I've been drawing up some schematics for my circuit and I seem to be confusing myself. I had the idea of putting a transistor in series with my photoresistor to determine the amount of light it's receiving and with a threshhold code, turn the circuit on or off. I've never worked with transistors before so I think I'm kind of confusing myself with this whole thing. I also wanted to add in a potentiometer that'll be hooking up to a analog input and digital output to an LCD to calculate the voltage that it'll be putting out into the circuit so as to not overcharge the batteries. I'm just starting out with electronics so I feel kind of discouraged trying to build this thing and ashamed being so confused about it. I'll try to draw up a schematic in a bit to show you what I was thinking and if you guys think it's plausible.
EDIT: Ok, I think I've figured it out. I'm going to hook up the photoresistor to digital pin 2, analog pin 0, 5 V, and ground. With the code (with the readout of digitalPin 2) I want to see the threshhold of the resistor and how much power I can actually get out of the resistor until it's too low to actually allow the solar panel to power anything. I want to hook up an npn transistor to digital pin 12 ( which will be dependent upon digital pin 2's HIGH or LOW value ) or another non-PWM digital pin and use the digital pin as my switch to turn off the device during nighttime, or if there isn't enough light, or turn the device on when there is enough light. I assume I have to hook up the transistor's Collector and Emitter to the actual panel circuit between ground and the 4 series AAA batteries.
If there is anything wrong with the current circuit or anything that doesn't make sense please let me know, I'm very interested and electronics and know that a critique of the work isn't a critique of the man.
I do not currently have a circuit set up for the arduino because I don't know how to work with spice IV well enough to find all the components I need (or if they even exist in the program.) The box on the bottom right is the USB. The power source is the solar panel (again, couldn't find the right symbol for a solar power source.)
