Solar panels

[belegkarnil]

Hi!

Does someone customized the ardumOwer in order to include a solar panel instead of a loading station?
Because I am really interested into an arduino Robot Lawn Mower but I prefer to use solar energy and no wire into the ground (only obstacle detection).

Can you tell me if this adjustment can be easy ?

Thanks !

 

[otterstedt]

Would be a nice idea to just move the mower into the sun when the batteries are exhausted ;-)

Recently I saw this article hackedgadgets: http://hackedgadgets.com/2014/04/13/arduino-solar-charge-controller-2/

 

[werner]

Hi,
currently I see a solar panel only as a support for the battery, so you can choose a smaller battery and on a sunny day it's possible to have a reasonable running time of the robot.
100% solar robot is critical: a 50W panel is quite big, and these 50W are only available in full sunshine. What about a cloudy day, or short days like in spring or fall? You need a robot that consumes far less than 50W and is still able to mow.
Example: my robot drows average 30W with short lawn, up to 60W in high thick lawn, close to 100W for ramp up of mower motor or when accelerating up a hill. And my robot is with

 

[nanc]

Just fantastic! Every day I discover something new regarding the solar panels. Several years ago, when I installed solar panels on my roof, it seemed amazing, but several days ago I have found this blog post about purifying of groundwater with solar panels and learnt about another benefit of PV panels. Today this. Thank you, now I have something to think about.