Anyone Using Solar and Battery to Power A Raspberry Pi?

[DisabledVet]

I have a lot of projects around the house that run off Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 single board computers. I have had my eye on a UPS designed and built for the Pi: https://lifepo4wered.com/lifepo4wered-pi+.html

This board is all setup to take solar as input to charge the UPS and run for up to 9 hours off the 1500 mAh LifePO4 cell (18650) for $55 plus $10 shipping.

That's not enough power for me. After watching Will's new video this morning (Cheapest Aliexpress LiFePO4 CALB Cell Reviewed), it has me thinking different options I would like to try ... and thoughts on the Pi. Does it make more sense to keep the batteries at 12V and use a DC-to-DC power supply to take the power down to the right level for a Pi? Should you run the batteries in parallel at 3.3V instead?

Is anyone out there running a Pi off of solar?

 

[SCClockDr]

Are you looking to form a central power source for all the Pi's?

 

[DisabledVet]

That is my initial thought - a central solar power generator providing the 5.1V 3A power via multiple fused USB ports.

 

[SCClockDr]

Have you gathered their agitated aggregated power consumption including the items they sample or control?
Are they physically centrally located?
Total USB ports to support?

 

[John Frum]

Have you gathered their agitated power consumption including the items they sample or control?

Do you mean aggregate?

 

[SCClockDr]

Do you mean aggregate?

Hmmm! Good catch, used Swype & I failed to catch it. Thanks. Fixed!

 

[DisabledVet]

Not yet ... and that is part of the challenge. I use them for different projects as those projects come up. Right now, one is being used as a Minecraft server for the kids, one is being used as a media server, and one is being used as a work-in-progress for a security camera project ... with 4 more sitting around idle at the moment.

I might end up having to "meet in the middle" on this one by seeing what kind of total power can be reasonably provided and seeing if I can work within that limit.

 

[Supervstech]

I am not aware of any 5v solar charge controllers, so buck converters setup on a bank would be my suggestion.

I have seen on the power wall diy videos guys building banks of single 18650 charger/testing stations... I would think setting up a 12v system and having several 5v ports would be an easy task...

 

[atatistcheff]

Andreas Spiess has an interesting video on using solar power for projects. Maybe not exactly what you're looking for but still a really interesting channel if you haven't seen it.

 

[erik.calco]

I have a lot of projects around the house that run off Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 single board computers. I have had my eye on a UPS designed and built for the Pi: https://lifepo4wered.com/lifepo4wered-pi+.html

This board is all setup to take solar as input to charge the UPS and run for up to 9 hours off the 1500 mAh LifePO4 cell (18650) for $55 plus $10 shipping.

That's not enough power for me. After watching Will's new video this morning (Cheapest Aliexpress LiFePO4 CALB Cell Reviewed), it has me thinking different options I would like to try ... and thoughts on the Pi. Does it make more sense to keep the batteries at 12V and use a DC-to-DC power supply to take the power down to the right level for a Pi? Should you run the batteries in parallel at 3.3V instead?

Is anyone out there running a Pi off of solar?

There are a ton of things that give you USB ports from 12V. You can also buy a cheap $20 SCC on ebay that comes with USB ports. I've charged phones with that w/o a problem using a 100W panel.

 

[gnubie]

I run a couple of RPis and a couple of other linux SBCs from 24v battery + solar. I use ebay sourced buck converters to produce the 5v to run them. I don't trust the converters to not die and send full voltage to their output so I have a simple circuit on the output that will disconnect should the output go over around 5.4v.

 

[DisabledVet]

For those coming back to this thread - I found another video that I am considering since this guy specifically runs a Pi as part of his commo gear.

 

[D308]

I built an ADSB tracker using an RPI, SDR receiver, el cheapo solar charge controller, cigarette lighter USB adapter, a 5 ah LiPo battery and charging it with a Renogy 5 watt panel. If I remember correctly, it would draw around 3-400 mah. That was the RPI and an SDR receiver plugged into one of the USB ports as well as a usb WiFi dongle. I housed all of this inside a foot long 4 inch pvc pipe with a very small (abt 2” ) whip antenna on the top or end of the pvc and mounted the whole thing on my second storie roof.
This all worked very well for a few days until the battery would die at night. I had a bec in there as well to keep from damaging the LiPo. Realizing the 5 watt panel wasn’t enough I swapped it for a larger panel. The whole system worked great for about a month. It would still shut down for a short time at night until the sun came up and charged the battery up enough to boot the pi. I was receiving aircraft data from as far as 300 miles away and streaming it to flight aware website. All was great then one Sunday afternoon I noticed a burning plastic smell. I thought it was a car that had just driven past the house and was thinking wow, he’s about burn up. The smell continued. I went out to look for the smell and noticed a plume of smoke coming from my 2nd storie roof. I realized it was the ADSB tracker I had build a month earlier.
I was able to put it out using a garden hose. It was a complete loss. Fortunately pvc doesn’t combust easily. It destroyed everything inside the pvc. I was able to open it up and it appeared the LIPO battery had failed for some reason and caught fire. It burned up all of the electronics inside.
It was pretty impressive how hot it got but the pvc did not ignite.

Lesson learned, add fuses, use quality components. Forget about using lipo batteries for stand alone projects.
In the end It was a fun project.

Good luck with yours.

Don.

 

[namesgolden]

I built an ADSB tracker

I was just about to suggest to OP to check some of the ADSB tracker projects for input on this.

OP: for the media server, unless you're using a raspi4, check out the odroid boards -- gige ethernet and sata ports. I plan to use a hc2 connected to a sata port expander in my RV.

I would just go with the largest battery bank you can fit and afford. a 2-4 6v golf cart batteries, a couple used AGM's from marketplace/cl.. whatever. that way you can get more of your electronics off grid.

 

[D308]

I was just about to suggest to OP to check some of the ADSB tracker projects for input on this.

OP: for the media server, unless you're using a raspi4, check out the odroid boards -- gige ethernet and sata ports. I plan to use a hc2 connected to a sata port expander in my RV.

I would just go with the largest battery bank you can fit and afford. a 2-4 6v golf cart batteries, a couple used AGM's from marketplace/cl.. whatever. that way you can get more of your electronics off grid.

It was a fun project. The FlightAware folks contacted me asking if I was going to restart my tracker. After a little research I realized I was giving them data for free and they were selling my data. I asked them to sponsor a station to me and I would manage it. They refused. It seemed like a scam to me. I provide the hardware, the location, manage it and the WiFi for free and they sell that data. Didn’t seem fair to me. They claimed they were giving me an 80 dollar access to their site for free. There isn’t anything on their site that I need so that was the end of it. I was tinkering with the idea of building one out of an RPI Zero and streaming to a different site that doesn’t use my data for their profit.

Don.

 

[namesgolden]

There isn’t anything on their site that I need so that was the end of it.

I actually just got an rtlsdr to do a build, and am planning on doing a beacon for my SO's family plane (a tiny supercub)