Author Topic: Solar Panel  (Read 2102 times)

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Offline ocala

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Solar Panel
« on: April 18, 2016, 09:10:11 PM »
When I received the station I charged up the battery. It topped out at 2653mv. I mounted the unit hooked up the solar panel on Saturday and every day the voltage is on a steady decline.
It's now down to 2605mv. We have had just about full sun the past 2 days and the panel is facing SW.
Any idea's why the panel isn't charging the battery?
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline SpringHillWeather

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2016, 09:38:59 PM »
When I received the station I charged up the battery. It topped out at 2653mv. I mounted the unit hooked up the solar panel on Saturday and every day the voltage is on a steady decline.
It's now down to 2605mv. We have had just about full sun the past 2 days and the panel is facing SW.
Any idea's why the panel isn't charging the battery?

If you login to your BloomSky dashboard http://dashboard.bloomsky.com and then Click -->Data View-->Station Status and check the graph.  This might help determine if its charging or not.

Here is mine:
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Offline ocala

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2016, 10:22:03 PM »
It's not charging. That's the issue.
It's been on a slow decline since the initial charge.
Other then plugging it into the unit is there another step that's involved?
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline SpringHillWeather

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2016, 10:34:31 PM »
It's not charging. That's the issue.
It's been on a slow decline since the initial charge.
Other then plugging it into the unit is there another step that's involved?

Other than plugging it in there there aren't any other steps.  However I do believe if the battery isn't low enough it won't charge.
What about the a/c charger?   The Bloomsky will light up with a Red led when charging. 

Here is a similar issue on the Bloomsky support site: https://bloomsky.desk.com/customer/portal/questions/16251585-not-sure-if-device-is-getting-charged
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Offline RainmanWeather

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2016, 10:34:39 PM »
It might be OK, here is a view of mine. It sometimes sits down for several days like SIW shows and then jumps way back up and to the steady decline again like you are experiencing. I would wait it out a little longer to see what happens.

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Offline SpringHillWeather

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2016, 10:42:27 PM »
I think your right the charging threshold looks to be around 2600mv.

I checked my battery table and once it went down to 2595mv, it started to charge.
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Offline ocala

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2016, 10:47:26 PM »
Thanks guys. It's almost at that threshold now so we'll see what happens.
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline W3DRM

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2016, 11:06:15 AM »
These graphs are interesting. Here is what I see on mine. Can't explain why they look like they do because we have have pretty much all sunny weather lately. Mine look very much like RainmanWeather's.
Don - W3DRM - Emmett, Idaho --- Blitzortung ID: 808 --- FlightRadar24 ID: F-KBOI7
Davis Wireless VP2, WD 10.37s150,
StartWatch, VirtualVP, VPLive, Win10 Pro
--- Logitech HD Pro C920 webcam (off-line)
--- RIPE Atlas Probe - 32849

Offline ocala

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2016, 07:53:56 PM »
I think your right the charging threshold looks to be around 2600mv.

I checked my battery table and once it went down to 2595mv, it started to charge.
That was the issue. it's been charging every day since then.
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline SpringHillWeather

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Re: Solar Panel
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2016, 12:20:51 AM »
I think your right the charging threshold looks to be around 2600mv.

I checked my battery table and once it went down to 2595mv, it started to charge.
That was the issue. it's been charging every day since then.

Good news, thanks for the update.
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