What am I doing wrong? This node works perfectly when on battery power. When I put it into the sun light to use the solar power a couple mins later it disconnects and does not boot back up until I hit the reset button.
Welcome to the forum @KE9BMM
Meshtastic firmware?
What solar panel? Ours or a different one?
Please show how the solar panel is connected to the Base Board.
Good afternoon @beegee
I am using a Fellden Micro Solar Panel 5V 200mA Photovoltaic Solar Cells. I purchased them off of Amazon. The firmware is 2.6.4 the newest stable firmware available. The battery and the solar panel are hooked up straight to the proper JST connector on the board. I had to switch the polarity of the battery.
Tony
It should work with these panels.
Can you flash this firmware instead of the Meshtastic firmware and check if it changes anything.
Extract the UF2 file from the archive
Double push reset button while connected over USB to a computer
Copy the UF2 file to the new drive that pops up.
WB_HW_Test_V1.1.9_H.uf2.zip (186.5 KB)
@beegee Ok I downloaded that firmware. Now the blue and green lights are blinking back and forth like police lights. I also cannot see the node on serial or BT. When I put it into the sun light the red button does light up faintly. Also an fyi the black wire is positive.
Seems the device working so far if not* using Meshtastic firmware beside of
cannot see the node on serial or BT
You mean if you connect it through USB cable it is not showing up as COM port? Then how did you flash the firmware?
About BLE, it will not show up in your Meshtastic app, it is not a Meshtastic device with the test firmware.
Can you see it in the Bluetooth device list on your phone?
@beegee
I apologize I was able to see it as a com port. I was trying to connect it to meshtastic. Now I understand it isn’t a MT device so I will not be able to see it on the app or on the MT web client.
I cannot see it on my BT device list on m y phone.
It will show up on BLE as RAK-TEST-xxxxxxxxxxxx with xx being a unique number from the device.
I can’t tell you. We are not developing or maintaining the Meshtastic firmware.
The hardware test app shows no major defects, so I don’t think you have a hardware problem.
Maybe the Meshtastic guys can help with your problem.
one question:
were you aiming to run it only with solar panel (no battery attached?)?
No, I was looking for the solar during the day to charge the batteries.
how is the battery voltage when testing? seems like a strange behavior if the battery was charged or at least not discharged …
@richonguzman the batteries were fully charged. I charged them and then placed them into the box. Everything worked fine. As soon as I placed the box out in the sun a few minutes later the node shut off and I lost connection to Bluetooth. I hit the reset button and it would start back up for a few mins and do the same thing. If I pull it out of the sun and have it sitting just on battery it will stay on for hours. But as soon as I put it back I. The sun the same thing happens.
ok, can you double check the polarity of the solar panel? that the solar panel does send enough current, and correct voltage (not to much to damage any interntal parts)?
maybe check if the batter is overcharged? higher voltage than it should handle? (could it be a protection for the board issue?)