Tony - Has anyone figured out a reliable and du...
Has anyone figured out a reliable and durable solar and power module for esp32 boards? I would like to power the HALMET as a remote weather station with a fixed solar panel and battery inside of an IP68 waterproof box and wire glands. It would be great to no have to figure out which charge controller matches which battery and just plug and play
4 Replies
What exactly are you planning on sensing? For a purely battery-powered application, I'd almost pick a different board. There are plenty of ESP32 board that include a Lithium battery charging IC built-in.
HALMET has multiple subcircuits that consume a little bit of current even if you put the MCU itself to sleep, and the power supply requires a minimum of 4 V (or 4.5? can't remember) of voltage to run, so for battery-powered applications, it might not be the best choice.
I was planning on doing some i2c modules. An air quality sensor, maybe a weather vane, and some temp humidity pressure sensors
I'd say get one of those boards that have a built-in Lithium battery holder and which are optimized for battery use. Lilygo, for example, has several models, although I don't have first-hand experience on them. Such boards are designed to have no circuits with constant current consumption. When the device is programmed to deep-sleep between measurements, you can get really significant battery run times out of them.
Thanks Matti. I’ll take a look and see if I can find a suitable board.