Questions about Nick Gammon Solar Power Arduino

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

Hello,
I am implementing a design using Nick Gammon Super cap circuit (https://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=12821).

The only modifications i have made are:

1)Instead of a single .47F capacitor, I have 2 5.6V 1F capacitors in parallel
2)I am using a 1284P instead of the 328P

I am at the stage in the work where I am connecting the circuit to a desktop power supply set at 7.3 volts.

The first problem I observed is that the desktop power supply is only registering .01 amp as the current being used. Given that design has a 5.6V 500mW Zener i was expecting the current to go higher than just 10mA.

Second, I have put a little SPST switch to isolate the MCU from the power, and as soon as i turn it on, and the MCU starts consuming power the voltage starts to drop, and it never stops going down, as if there was no power input from the desktop and the power was just coming from the super caps.

When the MCU is running, I measured the voltage at the entry point of the circuit , I get 7.33V but when I measured the voltage at the Zener cathode, the voltage reads about 3.90V

I am suspecting that I might need a Zener diode with 1W, but would love to hear feedback. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks

2

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Please can you post a schematic of your circuit, as in, the actual circuit you built, not the one on the web site.
Some photos of what you have made would also help.

By posting a link to a web site you are asking us to work through the tutorial and then guess what mistakes you might have made. While someone might be willing to do that, you are far more likely to get help if you show us what you have.

I also strongly suspect you have not read 'how to use this forum - please read', as it has a big clue in the title I'd have imagined that would be the first thing you'd do.

Thank you.