Sunny Buddy won't power arduino, appears to charge battery
Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:49 am
Hey there,
So for my first big project, I decided to build the weather station, detailed here.
However, I seem to have gotten stuck on the "power the arduino with the Sunny Buddy" step.
Here's what I have so far:
However, when I plug the Arduino in, nothing appears to happen.
And this is where I'm stuck. I'm not sure what to check next. This is my first real electronics project, and an ambitious one at that, so I'm lost on what I can check to narrow down the problem to either something I did wrong, or a problem with the Sunny Buddy, or the arduino(s), or what have you.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
~modulo1
So for my first big project, I decided to build the weather station, detailed here.
However, I seem to have gotten stuck on the "power the arduino with the Sunny Buddy" step.
Here's what I have so far:
- 3.5W Solar Panel (store link)
- 6aH Battery pack (store link)
- Sparkfun Sunny Buddy (store link | hookup guide)
- Screw Terminal 3.5mm pitch, 2-pin (store link)
- Male barrel plug pigtail, connected to screw terminal, center pin positive
- Arduino Uno x2 (I was thinking my arduino was at fault, but now I'm not so sure).
However, when I plug the Arduino in, nothing appears to happen.
- Just the Arduino: the "on" LED lights up, but the pin 13 LED appears much dimmer. The arduino is running the weather station code found here, without the GPS module, so the TX LED should blink when the arduino reads the sensor data off the weather shield.
- Arduino with the Electric Imp shield connected and the Imp card inserted: the green "on" LED is lit, but flickers. The LED on the Imp card does not light up at all.
- Arduino with the weather shield connected: the blue LED on the weather shield does not light up at all.
And this is where I'm stuck. I'm not sure what to check next. This is my first real electronics project, and an ambitious one at that, so I'm lost on what I can check to narrow down the problem to either something I did wrong, or a problem with the Sunny Buddy, or the arduino(s), or what have you.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
~modulo1