Solar Powered Piaware Site

I friend of mine is working on setting up a second site. He is going to set it up running off solar. He is looking for a way, so when the voltage gets to a certain point the RPi will shut down safely. I’m sure their is a few ways do make this happen. Any help would be great.

Thanks.

raspi.tv/2013/controlled-shutdow … -cell-lipo
raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2012/0 … -gpio-pin/ (same concept of measuring the time to charge a capacitor, but you’d have a variable battery input voltage and a fixed load rather than a constant +3.3V and a variable load)

or if you want something a bit more “preassembled” you can get stuff like abelectronics.co.uk/product … -converter

Thanks Obj…

Depending on how much power the solar panel can produce and how much a pi needs to run, you could put a lead acid battery in there and maybe run all night.

a few ‘if’s’ there though, get a crappy day and you might need your auto shutdown any way. Or if you get very little night traffic might not be worth it.

Some solar charge controller/regulators have a battery voltage detection system that will disconnect the load (in this case the Pi) when the battery drops to a certain level. More expensive ones are programmable and allow you to set the charge, disconnect, reconnect voltages and more. It all comes down to price I suppose.

There is a project on kickstarter, that might be of interest to you:

Artical

PiJuice

I was looking at this setup from Voltaic systems to power a piaware and a cellular mifi on a remote mountain top. Anyone used this setup, or anyone been successful setting one up?

https://voltaicsystems.com/17-watt-kit/

Thanks

Do you have a space limitation?
17W might be enough to run a Pi, but add a modem and it won’t get through the night.

Don’t forget, the PV panel will need to be steep enough to shed any snow.
… and derate your panel to suit local conditions.
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