Any chance you know the actual current rate of the panel? The battery is capable of 4A per hour. The solar cell is rated for 1A per hour. That is a 1:4 ratio, predicting very good sunlight for a most of the day.
Any capacity increase in battery is also predicting good sunlight for most of a couple days. Any increase in solar power will improve battery performance. What is the power draw against the battery?
Increase the components on the battery for better power management. Overcharge, overdischarge, battery capacity monitor, etc. I would use an Arduino for this. Have the Arduino shutdown the PICO with the run pin. The Arduino can sleep and use low power while the PICO is down. While there is at least 20-40 percent of the battery, let the PICO run. Kill it when below the threshold and hold it down. You can add an additional 5-10 percent to allow for a graceful shutdown if you want. This is a submodule and it exists in ring 0. It can be controlled by the PICO if you choose. In this case I see no point for that. You also do not have proper bootloader or diagnostic mode currently. So for the first pass keep it simple. However you are asking for features in this direction. You want basic comms, logging and reliability. These features are more common on higher end platforms but there are OSI like tricks which can get them on lower power models. However this increases the component cost.
Power Modes:
Any capacity increase in battery is also predicting good sunlight for most of a couple days. Any increase in solar power will improve battery performance. What is the power draw against the battery?
Increase the components on the battery for better power management. Overcharge, overdischarge, battery capacity monitor, etc. I would use an Arduino for this. Have the Arduino shutdown the PICO with the run pin. The Arduino can sleep and use low power while the PICO is down. While there is at least 20-40 percent of the battery, let the PICO run. Kill it when below the threshold and hold it down. You can add an additional 5-10 percent to allow for a graceful shutdown if you want. This is a submodule and it exists in ring 0. It can be controlled by the PICO if you choose. In this case I see no point for that. You also do not have proper bootloader or diagnostic mode currently. So for the first pass keep it simple. However you are asking for features in this direction. You want basic comms, logging and reliability. These features are more common on higher end platforms but there are OSI like tricks which can get them on lower power models. However this increases the component cost.
Power Modes:
- Full: LEDs can be used
- Medium: WIFI/PICO can be used
- Low: Arduino can be used
- Full: Provide intended function (Hours of up time)
- Medium: Comms for monitoring (Hours of up time)
- Low: Hardware fault protection (Days of up time)
- Arduino protects against hardware failure, temperature, power loss, etc.
- Arduino has ability to kill PICO.
- Power plan should allow comms unless in extreme cases. (No error log for extended duration is total failure detection.)
Statistics: Posted by dthacher — Fri Sep 06, 2024 6:30 pm