Solar Charger - Maker Factory ELECTRONICS EXPERIMENTS BOX Manual

2.58 Solar charger

Circuit 125: Solar charger for AA battery
Setup information
Install the diode as shown in Fig. 2.125. Connect the solar cell and the AA battery holder. Check the place-
ment on the board again.
Experiment
If everything is wired correctly, you can safely go ahead and insert the NiMH battery into the AA battery
holder. When full sunlight falls on the solar cell, the battery is charging with about 15 mA, the risk of over-
charging a modern NiMH battery is thus very low. If the solar charger is not constantly exposed to full sun,
the battery can be kept in the holder. That way, the battery is basically always charged and ready for use.
The circuit diagram for this experiment is shown in Chap. 3, Fig. 3.125.
150
Components required:
1 x solar cell, 1 x BAT85
Schottky diode,
1 x breadboard, 1 x AA
battery holder
Fig. 2.125: Solar charger for
AA battery