Solar Power on the Arduino – SunAir

SunAir is now available.

The latest SwitchDoc Labs Kickstarter project is SunAir, a board designed to charge LiPo batteries from Solar Panels and power your Arduino as well as a Raspberry Pi.

Update 2 (Dec 10, 2014):  We now have 34 pledges for a total of $1571/$2000.

Second SunAir Kickstarter Update (with Video) (Dec 10, 2014) Published here.

An earlier generation of this project was used in Project Curacao. You also can track the sun, detect low power conditions and more. Works perfectly with the SwitchDoc Labs WatchDog Timer Board.

This is a board that is designed for you to build your own Arduino Solar Powered Projects.

SunAir contains level shifters so it can talk to both an Arduino and a Raspberry Pi.  Here is an Arduino hooked into SunAir and a Stepper Motor.

You can build a:

• Solar Power System for an Arduino remote weather station
• Solar Power Charger for your phone or battery pack
• Track the Sun and get 25% -30% more power from your cells
• SunAirPlus allows you to gather data on how your system is behaving and make decisions based on that data.

Product Features

• Uses 6V Solar Cells
• Use 3.7V LiPo Cells for batteries
• Has LiPo to 5V power boost built in
• Directly powers Raspberry Pi / Arduino
• Works Raspberry Pi (3.3V) GPIO and Arduino (5.0V) GPIO
• Built-in Interface for Solar Tracking Photoresistor devices – including A/D
• Built-in Interface for Servo motor or external Stepper motor
• Built-in Interface for Limit Switches
• Charges iPhones and other Android phones or devices
• Approximates an MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) charging system
• Comes with a iPhone / iPad based Control Panel App ($2 on App Store – SunAirPiConnect / SunAirArduinoConnect)
• 3D SunAir Tracker OpenSCAD files available and STL files

SunAir Block Diagram

The Fritzing diagram below shows SunAir connected up to a Arduino.