Sodaq battery power switch & battery charging

SARA AFF
1

Hi,

I have a battery-powered device with my SODAQ SARA R412M board using a Lipo battery.
There is also a switch to the battery input so as to power on/off the device.

I want to be able to recharge the battery fast when the device is powered off.
Can I add a power switch to the board instead of on the one I have for the battery input?
Can I use the onboard USB port for charging while the board is powered off or both on/off?
What is the charging rate of the USB port charging circuit?

Thank you in advance,

Angeliki

2

Hi @angeliki,

There is no power switch on the board.
You can load the low power sketch to maximum reduce the power usage.

The battery can be charged by a connected USB cable and/or by the solar input.
It is possible to connect a USB charger and a solar panel at the same time.

The solar input is 5V. You can connect any other 5V power source to charge the battery.

The change LED will lit when the battery is charged.
The LED will be off when the battery is full.

Best regards,
Jan

3

Hi,

thank you for the information.

I want to determine if the battery is charging in the code by reading the CHARGER_STATUS pin and go into sleep mode.

This works fine when using the USB, the CHARGER_STATUS value is consistent with the charging LED.

But when I apply 5V to the solar input using a power supply 5V the CHARGER_STATUS pin value is not consistent with the charging LED.

Any ideas?

attaching the code :
bool charging = false;

void setup()
{
pinMode(LED_RED, OUTPUT);

pinMode(LED_GREEN, OUTPUT);

pinMode(LED_BLUE, OUTPUT);

digitalWrite(LED_RED, HIGH);

digitalWrite(LED_GREEN, HIGH);

digitalWrite(LED_BLUE, HIGH);

pinMode(CHARGER_STATUS, INPUT);

}
void loop() {
charging = digitalRead(CHARGER_STATUS);

if (!charging){

GREEN();  //green led on

else

RED(); //red led on

}