SOLAR BOOST BAG update after holiday

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brutus
 
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Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 9:23 am

SOLAR BOOST BAG update after holiday

Post by brutus »

Hello

I bought a SOLAR BOOST BAG like in this post https://learn.adafruit.com/solar-boost-bag?view=all but with a PowerBoost 1000 Basic https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-powerboost?view=all and after some issues with the charging rate cf this post viewtopic.php?f=15&t=63614 and questions cf this post viewtopic.php?f=15&t=63179 I end up with the following components:

- USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger - v2 https://www.adafruit.com/product/390 with 2x 1K resistors and 2x 3mm LED, a charging LED and full battery LED indicator.
- Lithium Ion Battery Pack - 3.7V 6600mAh https://www.adafruit.com/products/353
- PowerBoost 1000 Basic https://www.adafruit.com/products/2030
- Breadboard-friendly SPDT Slide Switch https://www.adafruit.com/product/805

Further more I wanted to increase the max charge current so I followed this tutorial https://learn.adafruit.com/usb-dc-and-s ... he-charger and soldered a 2K Ohm resistor to set it from 500mA to 1000mA

I do not wanted to use the Large 6V 3.4W Solar panel https://www.adafruit.com/product/500with a max output of 530 mA but a bigger one, so I pick up the Huge 6V 5.6W Solar panel https://www.adafruit.com/products/1525 with a max output of 930 mA. Further more I wanted to be able to add more solar panel (like 2 or 3) knowing that the max charge current would still be set to 1000mA due to the USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger but that would improve the charging rate in low light condition. So I bought the following "Hub" from Voltaic system 3 Panel 6V/18V Circuit Box http://www.voltaicsystems.com/3-panel-6 ... ircuit-box and i set it to 6V

Of course I had to redesign the "box" due to the larger batterie

That would give me something like that:
The hardware
The hardware
2014-12-20 12.20.10.jpg (121.23 KiB) Viewed 1184 times
The final result
The final result
2014-12-30 00.47.58.jpg (266.02 KiB) Viewed 1184 times
So back from holiday, and rather happy with result I would like to improve the solution:

1. I saw that I often forgot to turn off the switch, as I could not well the lights from the PowerBoost, is it posibl to connect th two lights with external LEDs?
2. I would like to get ride of the big "3 Panel 6V/18V Circuit Box" from voltaic system and use instead their splitter cable http://www.voltaicsystems.com/m3511-splitter the splitter keeps the panels in parallel so the output will be 6V.
3. Regarding the "USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger" is it possible to connect the capacitor to a 2-3cm cable to the bord, to gain some space?
4. of course I will have to redesign the case to make it smaller
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2015-02-10_132603.jpg
2015-02-10_132603.jpg (81.86 KiB) Viewed 1184 times

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: SOLAR BOOST BAG update after holiday

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

brutus wrote:1. I saw that I often forgot to turn off the switch, as I could not well the lights from the PowerBoost, is it posibl to connect th two lights with external LEDs?
Yes - the green LED is connected to the 5V output and the red LED is connected to the LBO pin:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pow ... power-pins
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pow ... ntrol-pins
brutus wrote:3. Regarding the "USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger" is it possible to connect the capacitor to a 2-3cm cable to the bord, to gain some space?
Yes!

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brutus
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 9:23 am

Re: SOLAR BOOST BAG update after holiday

Post by brutus »

Great thanks for your reply, I will try and post the result

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