Hi all. Soon I'll be visiting my brother and I wanted to install a project at his place.
Arduino measuring the water level and then transmitting data to his house. This arduino will be solar powered. I have had a go at some solar project before and I had trouble with finding the right charging module.
So what I have is the solar panel producing 6v. If clouds pass over or there is a weak sun the voltage will drop ofcourse. I have LiPo and LiIon battery available.
So I have tried power bank modules. These will charge the battery however the arduino uses so little power that the module thinks there is no power consumption and it will shut down.
Others I tried will not charge the battery and provide 5v at the same time.
Somewhere somebody must have had the same idea and produced a ready to go module right? If any of you experience with a module doing this, please let me know....
That true, updated the first post. I have LiPo and LiIon battery available. I have been using this in my rc hobby for quite a while so I know the dangers if not handled properly.
Well after those links I had an idea where to search for. I found something for a lot less than that in the link. This is more in the price range of my trial project.
If wanted I can post the link to what I found if others have interest.
Battery was a standard Klic7002, which survived a total of some 9000 charge cycles whilst being cycled between +30C and -30C every charge cycle.
The circuit is quite simple and basically sent as much current as the solar panels could manage (well under the max charge current of the battery) with a 3.9v cutoff.
Small sealed lead acid gel batteries are easy to charge from Solar of course, but everyone obsesses about using LiPos and LiOns even when they are a bad choice.
It is hard to almost impossible to get batteries shipped. I don't know where to find batteries in Portugal. Leroy Merlin only has big lead acid batteries for big solar projects. My Portuguese is bad, and I'll be 2 hours driving from a decent sized city. So I'll go with what I have
Bringamosa:
I don't know where to find batteries in Portugal
Thats not really the forums problem though.
I suggested Lead Acid jel batteries as they are in very common use with fire and burglar alarms, which I presume you have in Portugal, so they would be easy enought to find locally.
It is hard to almost impossible to get batteries shipped.
Lithium batteries then yes its getting hard to ship them, about time too, been the cause (alegadly) of some aeroplane crashes with loss of life etc.
Lead acid batteries for Alarms etc, are those banned from shipping in Portugal too ?
Well a forums problem or not, just trying to explain why I choose for what I already have on me here.
A statenent as: so they would be easy enought to find locally should not be done if you have not been there locally. Anyways this is all off topic now. I had great help
True, nice for big installations. Smallest battery 60ah. Overkill for what I want. Prices not to be found. You can download a price list but it won't include the smallest battery.
You will not find anything useful. At least not when searching in English. Been there, done that, won't try it again until there is no other option left. In this case I'll be using lipo or li ion. Thanks for the effort.
