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Pick-and-place prototype build

A project log for LiFePO4wered/Solar1

A complete LiFePO4 based solar power supply for IoT devices

patrick-van-oosterwijckPatrick Van Oosterwijck 05/29/2017 at 19:560 Comments

I received my prototype panels from Elecrow, very happy with the quality of these low cost boards I must say! So I went through the work of setting up the TinkerMill's TM245P pick-and-place machine to build prototype panels. I made a video to show part of the build process for those who are curious:

I'm building versions with different sense resistors. In principle I could produce them all with the maximum sense resistor of 0.24 ohm and then have customers add a through-hole resistor in parallel if they want a higher maximum charge current, but people don't tend to have these very low resistor values just laying around and they tend to cost more than normal resistors, so it seems to make sense to offer different values.

I will be offering 0.5A, 1.93A, 2.35A and 3.07A current limits. Note that this only configures the maximum charge current if you have a very high input source, in practice your solar panel will have a limited current output anyway and you may be able to charge a small 0.5A battery perfectly safely with a 3.07A board if your solar panel is small.

I still have to work on documentation but I hope to have these boards available in my Tindie store shortly so people can start putting these in the field. :)

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