I am trying to setup solar power to charge my 3.7v lipo battery to keep this weather station alive as a secondary backup power source. I am using the rak 5801 module to step up the power to 12v to power my adafruit wind sensor. When I plug in the lipo battery it powers both the wind sensor and the rak chip. If I bring out my 6v solar panel outside connected to the rak however it doesn’t power on my device which I guess means it isn’t strong enough. Do you have any suggestions as a work around to be able to use solar to power my weather station? Also, when I ran a test, the weather unit stayed alive for like a day or so and then died, it stayed offline because the solar panel wasn’t strong enough to even charge the battery. Any suggestions on maybe a battery/solar/module solution for this?
Few thoughts I have:
- The RAK5801 12V boost converter can only provide 30mA max. Something to check with Adafruit sensor. I can’t find any current consumption on its datasheet.
- You need to calculate/determine and manage the overall energy in your system. What is the average current consumption, battery capacity and average solar charging. Without these numbers, we are blinded on what’s happening. Those number should determine what battery capacity you need as well as the solar panel based on the days of operating time you needed off grid.
Done replying on the post. It is really hard to give advise since I have no access on the datasheet/specs of the battery, solar that you use. I just base my insights on the photos.