14 Nov 2017

LiPo battery charging from a 1W 5V solar panel

by | posted in: General electronics | 2

In my previous post, I reviewed some “5V 1W” solar panels, with a view to using them to power some IoT devices, and in this post I’ll show my experiments and conclusions about using the panel to charge the battery. LiPo cells have specific charging and usage requirements so that they don’t get damaged.  For charging the basic principal is that they require both constant current and then constant voltage charging. They also should … Read More
9 Nov 2017

Cheap “5V 1W” solar panel

by | posted in: General electronics, IoT | 2

I’ve been investigating solar power options for some external monitoring devices, so I invested in three (3)  “5V 1W” solar panels from eBay,  the amazing price of  $1.69 AUD each (around $1.20 USD or £1 UK), not really knowing what to expect.     When the panels arrived, the first thing I noticed as that the solar collector on each of them, didn’t quite look the same.     Also, one of them had … Read More