Solar panel with Arduino

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hello everyone.

Long ago I was shown a house with solar panels. The solar panels on top of the house charged a set of batteries and then the house used the electricity from the batteries (not sure if also directly from the panels, wasn't explained how it works). Anyways, a few days ago I was wondering if the same concept could be applied to arduino... use one of those 5V solar panel (or any that applies) that charges a battery that powers the arduino.. (or use the 5v directly from the panel, not sure if is possible both at the time). Is this something actually possible? If so, how could I do something like that?

I tought of this as now I'm trying to do a weather station to permanently leave outside the house, so it would be useful to have it working at night time also.

PD: my experience in electronics: completed the arduino projects book and done some other projects off the internet. This too advanced for me? lol :slight_smile:

2

I have been looking at this lipo solar charger. It is a bit expensive for me though.

3

Easy to do if you use 3.3v.
I have a weather station describing what you want to do.
I used two Jeenodes, one outside and one inside.

I had a solar panel and used this charger from Adafruit along with one of their batteries.

4

Nick Gammon's nice tutorial describing a solar powered Arduino (with a supercapacitor to run through the night) is full of useful information.

5

Thanks for all the info! I think I'll follow Nick Gammon's tutorial. Altough I may have to learn a bit a bout supercapacitor first :slight_smile: Thanks again!