Hello, I'm just starting out in the world of Arduino, and I'd like to ask the more experienced people of the community, because I couldn't find a clear answer anywhere.
I'd like to make an Arduino board based motion sensor, which would need to be on 24/7, or at least 16 hours a day. As I understand making this with regular batteries it would require changing it pretty frequently. If I'd use solar cell, could it be on 24/7, and if yes, what kind of solar cell would you recommend using?
Should something not be clear enough, excuse me, I can give more details if needed.
Thanks for your answers in advance.
It may be possible to use a solar cell which charges a battery. Solar cells on their own can't run anything 24/7 because they don't produce any power at night!
But nowhere near enough information to recommend anything. How much power do you need and where will your project be located? Outdoors/indoors? How much sun will it get? Will the panel have a clear view of the sky? If indoors why not just plug it into the mains?
Thank you, the project would be located outdoors, and my plan is to send a data with a radio transceiver through an ethernet gateway. Yes, the panels would have a clear view of the sky, sometimes they would be in a shadow, I don't think that matters much, though. Sorry, I don't know how could I answer the power question, if it helps, the system would need to notice the movement of cars in a parking slot where I live. Basically once or twice every hour the system would send data to me, because of cars leaving and entering the parking slot.
Another quick thought came into my mind while reading your comment: would it be possible using both a battery and a solar cell, with the solar cell powering the battery?
You will need to do some research on the parts you're planning to use and see how much power they will consume. Then do the math to figure out how much battery and solar capacity you will need.
For a 12v battery use 3w 21v open v panel. Not expensive and would work 247 with a WiFi if u use a decent battery. Solar powered WiFi repeater I made is fairly similar.
If you want to be certain that power will always be available then you need a large capacity battery and a large capacity solar panel. You can't have too much of either (if your wallet is thick enough).
And to start with you need a good estimate of the amount of energy (not power) that your device will consume in a typical day and add at least 50% for a safety margin.
This JRC website will help you estimate how much solar energy you can expect - I would downgrade that by 50% for a safety margin.