u/tomknickers

Hey guys,

Here is my A-Level DT final project. Whilst everybody else was busy making coffee tables and jewellery organisers I thought I would try do something cool with electronics…for the first time.

It is a solar panel powered phone charger on two separate circuits

1st Circuit (Mechanics & Cosmetics)
This is powered by a 9V cell going through a switch and then to an arduino, this arduino turns two servos, controlled by a rotary encoder, to position the solar panels. Furthermore, there is an LCD I2C screen implemented, although it is virtually useless, because they are different circuits, it cannot actually give any information on charging.

2nd Circuit (Charging)
This circuit feeds 3 solar panels into a TP4056 charging unit and this in turn charges a 18650 lithium ion battery, then the output goes to a 5V USBA output.

Ultimately, it works, it can charge most 5V devices (except those that require handshake signals, a slight oversight). I think it’s quite cool and I’m set to get a decent grade because of how much I can and have wrote about it.

I would just be interested on your guys’ opinions, it asks for the opinion of others and ideally an expert in your field, so obviously I turned to the most reliable site around, reddit. Seriously though, if anybody has any good or bad constructive criticism it would be so appreciated and it would go into my coursework.

Thanks all :)