Wow, 100 mA for LED & 250 mA for charging, if I read it right. DD should always be on if battery is in an operating V range. Looks good. Will review tracecoms readings to see what else we can glean from them. Great work tracecom.

 

Yes hope he come online to confirm soon. Looks like quite a bit of components to change. Those DD, DA and DE, I think will be good to keep for future changing/replacing of solar panel. I think need to list down the steps on the settings/configuration.

 

Now the bad news: If the SP output, R100-2, stays at 2.84 V as R100-1 climbs to 14 V, V dif. of 11.16 /10 Ω = 1.16 A; DE draws 100 mA, charging limited to around 200 mA by R 21, then where does the extra 700 mA go?
Is anything getting warm or hot? Or could BBR1 cause some strange effects? Without that big V jump, every thing else seems normal for a 3 ring circus. It might be interesting to see what happens if we pulled BBR1 out & connected R100-2 directly to D1-2, as our simulated SP can have more OC V than jenovauh's 14V panel. Should limit V at D1-1 to 10V.
All suggestions welcome- up to & including " Hit Delete".

 

Hi Benard, can the extra 700mA use to power up more LED circuits and cut off when it only have 100mA for DE and 200mA for charging. Possible to do that?

 

The 700 mA may be just an illusion, & not available from a real SP.

 

Hi Benard,
I see, but which will also happen if I change to a higher output solar panel right? By the way my current solar panel maximum output is only 600mA.
For the charging current to increase, does that mean that I can reduce the resistor value on R21? And how do I calculate that? Thanks.

Hi tracecom,
Base on your testing, any component I need to change or include? Some steps instruction on the setup will very helpful cause I am lost with all those testing you did.

 

As figured now, the average current of DE is only 50 mA, so there should be room for more LED's or higher current LED's, up to maybe 200 mA average. We now have 25% light, 75% dark; we could split the LED's into two groups, still each group at 25% but one group time shifted so that effectivley there would be 50% light & 50% dark. This would even out the current pulses, especially helpfull if more LED's were added.
R21 should now be lowered to maybe 5 Ω.
We may see some " interesting things" when a real SP is used.
If time is available, could correct 555 timing by using tracecom's figures or replace R1 & R2 with pots. Origional values were measured, but C1 may have been mis labled & lower than .01.

 

Hi Bernard, adding more led groups meaning to create more LED circuits?

Yes actually I had replaced R1, R2 and C1 for above 720Hz frequency and 25% duty cycle that was calculated.

Wondering where is tracecom?

 

Wondering where is tracecom?

I am here. Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment, which involved a long drive; it took all day. Today, I worked on a project of my own. Tomorrow, I will get back to your project.

 

I am here. Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment, which involved a long drive; it took all day. Today, I worked on a project of my own. Tomorrow, I will get back to your project.

Thanks and welcome back, hope everything is fine with your doctor's appointment.

 

RE, pg 49, # 483, let's not remove BBR1. Are we really measuring about 1A thru R 100 when "SP" V is increased ? R 100 would be disipating 10 W ?? ; something should be getting hot ?? Or something else is going on that I can't see.
I need to take some time to bake cookies & prepare for a party at VA Hospital.

 

RE, pg 49, # 483, let's not remove BBR1. Are we really measuring about 1A thru R 100 when "SP" V is increased ? R 100 would be disipating 10 W ?? ; something should be getting hot ?? Or something else is going on that I can't see.
I need to take some time to bake cookies & prepare for a party at VA Hospital.

Okay, I was just about to start on the mods. I'll go back and re-read the last few posts, and proceed accordingly.

 

RE, pg 49, # 483, let's not remove BBR1. Are we really measuring about 1A thru R 100 when "SP" V is increased ? R 100 would be disipating 10 W ?? ; something should be getting hot ?? Or something else is going on that I can't see.
I need to take some time to bake cookies & prepare for a party at VA Hospital.

In my assembly, R100 is a 15W 10Ω sand resistor. When I increase the SP output to 11.8V at R100-1, and R100-2 is at 2.8V, R100 heats up really fast, so, yes, I think we really are dissipating about .9 amps across R100.

 

Thanks, tracecom, guess the abnormal current draw is real. Seems like there is about 3 W beeing disopated somewhere in ckt; any hot spots? Looks like only three paths, verry leaky C5, & two BBR's. Let's disconnect each of the three inputs in turn; if excess current draw goes away, try disconnecting the BBR's outputs one at a time & see what happens.

 

Thanks, tracecom, guess the abnormal current draw is real. Seems like there is about 3 W beeing disopated somewhere in ckt; any hot spots? Looks like only three paths, verry leaky C5, & two BBR's. Let's disconnect each of the three inputs in turn; if excess current draw goes away, try disconnecting the BBR's outputs one at a time & see what happens.

I inserted a current meter between R100-2 and TB2-1, and gradually increased the SP voltage.

At R100-1 = 11.86V and R100-2 = 3.40V, the current peaked at 850mA.
At R100-1 = 12.19V and R100-2 = 9.61V, the current had fallen to 250mA.

I can't find anything getting hot except R100.

I will take whatever steps you say; is the next logical step to replace C5?

 

Might start by lifting lead at C5-1, re measure I, then TB2-1, TB6-1, TB3-1, & lastly TB7-1.

 

I will do that now and post the results, but I wanted to mention something that seems strange to me. With no connection from the PS that is representing the solar panels, and I first connect B1 to B1 buss, DD most of the time lights very dimly. When it does that, I have to disconnect it and reconnect it several times before it lights at full brightness. There is something unstable about D4.2, I think.

Disconnected C5 and powered up circuit.
R100-1 = 12.15V, R100-2 = 3.38V, 880mA from R100-2 to TB2-1. R100 getting hot fast.
Increased output of SP.
R100-1 = 13.21V, R100-2 = 3.43V, 980mA
R100-1 = 15.0V, R100-2 = 3.52V 1150mA
SP power supply maxed out; R100-2 never increased above 3.52V.

Another mystery!!!

Maybe I have something wired wrong. Do I need to send whatever parts you need to you, and you can probably get it working?

 

I decided that perhaps it was a mistake to not reduce the solar panel to minimum, so I did that and repeated the test.

With C5 disconnected C5, powered up circuit.
R100-1 = 10.27V, R100-2 = 3.27V, 700mA from R100-2 to TB2-1. R100 hot.
Increased output of SP.
R100-1 = 12.22V, R100-2 = 3.35V, 890mA
R100-1 = 12.51V, R100-2 jumped to 9.80V, 260mA

So, apparently, the voltage from the solar panel must decrease below a certain level (say about 10V), or else R100-2 will never move above about 3.35V regardless of how high R100-1 goes.

 

Bernard,

Here are the measurements you asked for. Same situation as in previous post.

TB2-1 = 12.51V
TB6-1 = 9.54V
TB3-1 = 10.90V
TB7-1 = 14.07V

 

Try reconnecting C1 & continue with remainder of tests. Let's not worry about DD right now. R100 heating is main worry, I have a gut feeling that the problem involves a semiconductor.
Re: # 499; measurements were after V jumped up?? Look verry normal.
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