Hi
My Li-Poly battery is 4.2V.
My solar panel is 5V 70mA.
I have made a Solar Power battery charger using the TPS27081ADDCR load switch.
My UC simply checks the battery voltage. If the voltage drops below 4V, then TPS27081ADDCR is enabled.
The voltage drop across the solar panel will never drop below battery voltage, this insure maximum power is being used even though it’s a max 70mA.
As this is a simple top up charger, the battery needs to have a small charge for the uC to enable the load switch. Therefore if battery is completely low an AC/DC I adaptor is required.
I am aware there are many solar charging IC’s, but I had chosen to do it this way to achieve a max possible charge even while experiments with iC’s required min voltage and current. As my charge current level is low, the batteries have managed to be OK with this method.
What I require now is a method to measure the solar strength, I had thought about measuring the charge current, but this does not necessary reflect the solar level.
I would like to know how can I measure or calculate the Light Intensity using the same solar panel?
Thank You
