SOLAR ENERGY Click

There are many battery chargers and solar energy harvesters out there already, but the Solar energy Click has the unique feature - it encompasses both of these devices in a single package. The Click uses Texas Instruments BQ25570 - a nano-power high-efficiency boost charger and buck converter device, designed to work with very low power energy harvesting elements, such as the photovoltaic and thermoelectric generators

Click Product page

Click library

• Author : MikroE Team
• Date : Dec 2019.
• Type : GPIO type

Software Support

We provide a library for the SolarEnergy Click as well as a demo application (example), developed using MikroElektronika compilers. The demo can run on all the main MikroElektronika development boards.

Package can be downloaded/installed directly from compilers IDE(recommended way), or downloaded from our LibStock, or found on mikroE github account.

Library Description

This library contains API for SolarEnergy Click driver.

Standard key functions :

• Config Object Initialization function.

  void solarenergy_cfg_setup ( solarenergy_cfg_t *cfg );

• Initialization function.

  SOLARENERGY_RETVAL solarenergy_init ( solarenergy_t ctx, solarenergy_cfg_t cfg );

Example key functions :

• Charge enable function.

  void solarenergy_charge_enable ( solarenergy_t *ctx );

• Charge disable functions.

  void solarenergy_charge_disable ( solarenergy_t *ctx );

• Battery good indicator functions.

  uint8_t solarenergy_check_indicator ( solarenergy_t *ctx );

Examples Description

This application charge the batery when is empty.

The demo application is composed of two sections :

Application Init

Initialization driver enables - GPIO and start to write log.

void application_init ( void )
{
    log_cfg_t log_cfg;
    solarenergy_cfg_t cfg;

    /** 
     * Logger initialization.
     * Default baud rate: 115200
     * Default log level: LOG_LEVEL_DEBUG
     * @note If USB_UART_RX and USB_UART_TX 
     * are defined as HAL_PIN_NC, you will 
     * need to define them manually for log to work. 
     * See @b LOG_MAP_USB_UART macro definition for detailed explanation.
     */
    LOG_MAP_USB_UART( log_cfg );
    log_init( &logger, &log_cfg );
    log_info(&logger, "---- Application Init ----");

    //  Click initialization.

    solarenergy_cfg_setup( &cfg );
    SOLARENERGY_MAP_MIKROBUS( cfg, MIKROBUS_1 );
    solarenergy_init( &solarenergy, &cfg );

    log_printf( &logger, "   Initialization   \r\n" );
    log_printf( &logger, "--------------------\r\n" );
    log_printf( &logger, " Charge the battery \r\n" );
    log_printf( &logger, "--------------------\r\n" );
    Delay_ms ( 1000 );
}

Application Task

This is an example which demonstrates the use of Solar Energy Click board. The following example will charge the battery if it is empty, and stop charging when the battery is full. When battery full status is detected, the device is disabled, but will check battery status every 10 seconds. Results are being sent to the Usart Terminal where you can track their changes.

void application_task ( void )
{
    if ( solarenergy_check_indicator( &solarenergy ) )
    {
        solarenergy_charge_disable( &solarenergy );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
        Delay_ms ( 1000 );
    }
    else
    {
        solarenergy_charge_enable( &solarenergy );
    }
}  

The full application code, and ready to use projects can be installed directly from compilers IDE(recommneded) or found on LibStock page or mikroE GitHub accaunt.

Other mikroE Libraries used in the example:

• MikroSDK.Board
• MikroSDK.Log
• Click.SolarEnergy

Additional notes and informations

Depending on the development board you are using, you may need USB UART Click, USB UART 2 Click or RS232 Click to connect to your PC, for development systems with no UART to USB interface available on the board. The terminal available in all Mikroelektronika compilers, or any other terminal application of your choice, can be used to read the message.