PV-Battery-Xbee

Have you ever wanted to monitor how much voltage/current your small PV solar panels are producing? It is easy enough with a multi-meter, but what if you just want to monitor it remotely and log the data on your computer. This high level overview shows a xbee setup remotely logging a PV panels volts/amps to a mac laptop. It makes use of only 10 ohm resistor and 2 ADC ports. No additional microcontrollers were necessary for this example. The PV solar panel is made by Voltaic Systems and costs only $30 (it peaks at 10.2V @ .133A)

http://www.voltaicsystems.com/backpack_solarpanels.shtml

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• xbee
• battery
• pv
• solar
• panel
• log
• data
• remote
• mac
• laptop
• tweet-a-watt
• batwatch

[davidlaurancepackard]

great stuff... (concenring slight difference in readings between multi and computer) is there any way to check for attenuation because you are using the xbee or does it just broadcast what it receives?

[sklarm]

The xbee is pretty much just broadcasting what it receives. It is not doing any sort of processing on the numbers The only thing that xbee device is doing that you might not expect is buffering the data and timing the release of it. This allows me to let the xbee "go to sleep" for a period of time then wake up and transmit some bits. I end up interpreting that data on the laptop side with a python script.

[sklarm]

The xbee unit is good for up to 100' unobstructed. I can use additional devices to route through structures that reduce the signal. I have a dedicated laptop to leave on with xbee transceiver so that I can keep a webserver running making accessibility much easier.

[Avraforlaura]

any chance you would post code and schematics? (:

[indoctrin8ed]

How are you obtaining voltage and current?

[GavinLeigh]

Any chance that you'll be offering these items for sale when you have it finalized, or maybe instructable plans. I imagine there are quite a few people (myself included) who have solar projects they'd love to monitor through their pc.

[breezebro]

Cool drums! Will the XBee reach from your battery dome building to your house? Are you planning to create a web server so you could monitor from anywhere?