Solar Energy Click Board
Solar Energy Click Board
There are many battery chargers and solar energy harvesters out there already, but the Solar Energy Click Board™ has the unique feature - it encompasses both of these devices in a single package. The Click Board™ uses Texas Instruments BQ25570 - a nano-power high-efficiency boost charger and buck converter device, designed to work with very low power energy harvesting elements, such as the photo-voltaic and thermoelectric generators.
The Solar Energy Click Board™ recharges the connected Li-Po battery or the onboard 220mF super-capacitor, using the photovoltaic element. This is done by utilising the BQ25570's charging and power harvesting capabilities and clever nano-power management features. This Click Board™ can also power up low power consumption devices by using the stored energy, providing a way for continuous power operation of low power devices.
These features make the Solar Energy Click Board™ an ideal solution for powering wireless sensor networks, environmental monitoring devices, portable and wearable health monitoring devices and similar low power self-sustained devices.
Software Support
We provide an example for the Solar Energy Click Board™ on our LibStock page, as well as a demo application (example), developed using MikroElektronika compilers. The demo can run on all the main MikroElektronika development boards.
Example Description
The application is composed of the following sections :
- System Initialization - Initializes GPIO pins used with Solar Energy Click Board™ and UART module used for data logging
- Application Initialization - Enables Solar energy click
- Application Task - (code snippet) Sequentially checks the state INT pin and reports current status by logging information to UART every 15 seconds.
void applicationTask() { Delay_ms( 15000 ); if (SOLAR_INT_PIN) { UART_Write_Text( "Battery in proper condition!"); UART_Write(13); UART_Write(10); } else { UART_Write_Text( "Battery voltage low"); UART_Write(13); UART_Write(10); } }
The example code for all architectures and compilers, and ready to use projects can be found on our LibStock page.
Other mikroE Libraries used in the example:
- UART
Additional Notes and Information
Depending on the development board you are using, you may need a USB UART click, USB UART 2 click or RS232 click to connect to your PC, for development systems with no UART to USB interface available on the board. The terminal available in all Mikroelektronika compilers, or any other terminal application of your choice, can be used to read the message.
Solar Energy Click Board
Frequently Asked Questions
Have a Question?
Be the first to ask a question about this.