Last week Siena was on spring break and that means I had some free time during the day to get outside and see what my solar panel can do for the battery. I was lucky enough to get a few mostly sunny days that allowed me to get some great data. The first day that I was able to get outside and charge the battery was a beautiful day. I was ready to go at 10:00 AM with a fully drained battery and a solar panel that was ready to catch some sunlight. I took measurements of battery level, current, and voltage every half hour until the sun set while taking note of the cloud cover. When the solar panel was fully exposed to sunlight the measurements fluctuated between 2-3 Amps and 12-13 Volts. In the first four hours of charging when the sunlight was direct the battery charged to somewhere in the range of 40-60%. I could not get an exact reading because the charge controller uses five bars to display the battery level and therefore only provides a range for the battery level. After first four hours the cloud cover significantly increased and the panel stopped getting direct sunlight. As you would expect the current being produced by the panel dropped significantly to around .5 Amps and then worked its way down to 0 as the sun continued to set. Although the battery did not fully charge this first day provided a great deal of high quality data that I can work with.
The following two days provided similar data but I made sure to get out earlier in the morning to get more hours of sunlight. The extra sunlight allowed me to overcome the 60% barrier that I faced on the first day. Although I never surpassed 80% I am still considering this a victory.
In the coming week I am planning to look into a set up using raspberry pi that will use a camera so a user would be able to check the charge on the battery without constantly going outside to check manually. I also plan to build a set up that holds the solar panel facing the sun while doubling as a protective cover for the other pieces.
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