Comments on: Solar Power for Raspberry Pi

By: Voltaic Systems

Voltaic Systems — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 15:01:29 +0000

In reply to Jared. The 20W panel could work if you're shutting the Pi off between functions. If you are trying to run the Pi 24 x 7, it would not work. Cigarette lighters that drop power from 12 to 5V are often very inefficient. I would look for a buck converter or some other regulator.

By: Jared

Jared — Sat, 02 Jan 2021 02:25:28 +0000

In reply to James.

That’s exactly what I want to do, or are looking into, but using a 20watt panel /18ah battery, and a car lighter charger… They say rpi4s charger is 15watts (5V 3a), and that it would be fine if any added hats consumed under 500mA I think it was…

So my theory was, 20watt panel, to charge a 12v 18ah battery, and then run a lighter charger to power rpi4… Still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do about running a display yet.. trying to stay away from a cheap and nasty low power inverter…

By: Diogene

Diogene — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 04:53:46 +0000

Raspberry pi board power consumption are much higher that what you show here.
And generally raspberry pi board are bad chooses for only solar powering.
Furthermore the version A is not suitable choice for low power consumption because is equipped with very inefficient LDO.

By: stu

stu — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 13:18:59 +0000

I’m not a hardware guy so much as a software guy, but I think you may be overengineering things.
You say “permanently damage” the pi or sd card. Well, again I’m not a hardware guy, but I thought power spikes break circuitry, not power loss. I can see low voltage being a problem but not immediate power loss.
Anyway that’s not my point: it’s the sdcard I can speak to or rather the data on it. Depending on how you install whatever OS you run on your raspberry pi, you might have little to worry about.
The ext3 and ext4 filesystems implement journaling which means after every write that is performed, the data may not be on disk in its final form, but it is on disk, at least in the journal an in the event of a random power loss, upon restart, the filesystem mount action will replay the journal to finish up what would have happened if the power wasn’t lost.
Journaling filesystems are very resilient against these types of problems. If you want to go crazy, you can install zfs which has all sorts of data protection mechanisms in it if you need to protect your data against possible loss.

By: Voltaic Systems

Voltaic Systems — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 12:57:56 +0000

In reply to James. Hi James, In general, we prefer LiIon or LiIon Phosphate batteries over lead acid as they are a lot lighter and tend to last a lot more cycles. Unless managed properly, lead acid batteries seem to have short shelf lives in the field. You can certainly try that setup. We would probably go with an 18 Watt / 18 Volt panel and a charge controller to prevent over discharging the battery.

By: James

James — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 23:58:35 +0000

Why not just power the pi with a 2.1 amp 5v usb adapter for a vehicle’s lighter socket, then connect that in parallel to a 9w solar panel and a cheap 12v 5ah lead acid battery? The power output of the panel would never be able to overcharge the battery and the pi would have full ups ability when the sun goes down.

By: Environmental Management with Raspberry Pi + Solar | Voltaic Systems Blog – Solar DIY and Device Charging

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:59:34 +0000

[…] Here’s how Geoff Built the first system (here’s a detailed post for other approaches on using solar with Raspberry Pi): […]

By: zorko

zorko — Sat, 07 May 2016 17:13:14 +0000

is possible to run CHIP computer off grid?
i need screen (10″), keyboard,wifi and router working all day (24h)
CHIP are working 10-12h per day. How creating all together?
router with information about power, meybe simple web serwer for information.
router ssh acces and meybe SD storage.
power bank in router big for screen (pixelq screen, mirasol?) and chip.

By: PJ Gray

PJ Gray — Wed, 04 May 2016 11:29:56 +0000

I am struggling to figure out how to properly power on/off my Pi with an Arduino using a transistor. Does anyone know of a tutorial that goes into more detail? I think I am not using the NPN transistor properly. I can trigger the power on and off to the Pi, but the current is never high enough and so my wifi doesn’t turn on. I am using a transistor from Adafruit, and the data sheet says the collector is rated at 1A (max) which should be good enough…so I think I am just not understanding the Base part? Most tutorials I have found online are about powering lamps or motors…haven’t found one that discusses power to something like a Pi (and how that changes the transistor setup)

Thanks for helping a newb!

By: Ross McFarlane

Ross McFarlane — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 11:16:01 +0000

Hi Tony,

I’m looking to do a project similar to yours but with water quality. What you have done looks great and it would be so useful if I could ask an expert for a few tips?

Many thanks,
Ross