How to check if a solar panel can charge a Thingy91

Hi Adeel,
Please check out the following webinar:
https://webinars.nordicsemi.com/how-to-power-your-cellular-iot-4
 

Hi Martin,

The video was insightful, however I have doubts while using Nordic Thingy91. 

I wanted to know if my connections of my Solar panel to the Thingy91 is okay and how can I figure out if it works ?

I tried to keep the board outside in a sunny environment and measured the battery voltage, but it did not change and kept decreasing. I was hoping that the solar panel can charge up the battery when outside. Is there a way to also look at the charging through solar panel from a software perspective ?

Regards,

Adeel.

Hi Martin,

The video was insightful, however I have doubts while using Nordic Thingy91. 

I wanted to know if my connections of my Solar panel to the Thingy91 is okay and how can I figure out if it works ?

I tried to keep the board outside in a sunny environment and measured the battery voltage, but it did not change and kept decreasing. I was hoping that the solar panel can charge up the battery when outside. Is there a way to also look at the charging through solar panel from a software perspective ?

Regards,

Adeel.

You need to make sure the solar panel can supply ~5 V if you connect it to VBUS like this. Or use a different charging circuit that is designed to handle input from a solar panel. It will not work just by connecting the solar panel directly to the USB input like this. 

Hi,

Thanks for that insight. Can you recommend any solar panel that can provide ~5V to the Vbus ? How is it normally implemented in the Thingy91 ?

Also, I wanted to know how would it be possible to see on the software side if the solar panel is charging the battery or not ?

Regards,

Adeel. 

None of this is supported on the Thingy91 so you must implement that yourself. 

May better to use a solar charger with USB output

Hello I know it is an old thread but, did you have any luck connecting a solar panel output to the 5VBus? how does the thingy behave with the voltage fluctuations because of the light intensity changes? in theory, it should just work because you were replacing the 5V from USB to a different source in this case a solar panel that has to be within PMIC operational voltage range 4~6.7v

Regards,
Arepa