Solar Battery Charger

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
1

Hi,

I'm completely new to microcontroller world, i build a solar battery charger using MCP73833 & it charges lithium poly battery 3.7V 1200mAH and then i'm using voltage booster to boost it to 5V so i can charge cell phone or mp3 or ipod with it. I also have a backup battery that kicks in if lithium battery is not charged. Now my teacher wants to make this project more complicated by adding microcontroller functionality to it.

Like I said earlier i never worked with microcontroller, i came across Arduino that its easy to learn and use. I want to add this somewhere in my project it can do any functionality either display battery charge on LCD or as switch between backup battery and lithium battery or anything else.

Please help with this...Thanks

2

anything else.

First rule of electronics, define what you want to do.

Then find out how to do it. The arduino is great for lighting up LEDs but to have an graphics LCD requires an add on shield.

Cheaper are the character based LCD
Look in the playground and the learning sections of this site:-
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LCDLibrary

3

I want to display the battery charge left in my rechargeable 3.7V lithium battery. I'm learning from tutorials but if someone can help how to display battery percentage tht will be great.