Sunny Buddy does not charge my battery

Components & Accessories Power
1

Hello,

I am having difficulty with charging a LiPo battery (3.7V / 2000mAh / CL356070) using Sunny Buddy v13.

The solar panel is TGM500-12V (see below) and the actual output voltage is about 12-18V in daylight.

  • - Power (max): 9W
  • - Current (max): 500mA
  • - Voltage voc: 18V

    • Following the hookup guide, I have adjusted the onboard potentiometer so that the voltage between SET and GND is about 3V, but the battery is not being charged.

    So, I cut I_SEN and measured the current and it was only about 20mA.

    What do I need to do to charge the battery?

    Any advice would be appreciated!

    2

    Can you send some photos of your battery and how you have everything connected?

    3

    Thank you for the reply, Chris!

    Attached the requested pic.

  • - The battery wires (red/black) are crossed in the middle and the black wire attached to Sunny Buddy is the positive.
  • - The barrel jack is center positive.

    • The load is OpenScale + OpenLog and they seem to be working fine with this setup (i.e. data is logged correctly).

    Please let me know if you need more info.

    (off-topic)

    I’m still working on the beehive scale that I asked about a while ago.

    My friend said he cannot change batteries very often, so we decided to try Sunny Buddy. :sunny:

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    4

    Thanks for the photo, that helps!

    Was the battery ever connected to the Sunny Buddy with the polarity wrong? That would probably damage the board and cause the battery to not charge. Also, does disconnecting the OpenScale help at all in getting the battery to charge?

    5

    Was the battery ever connected to the Sunny Buddy with the polarity wrong? That would probably damage the board and cause the battery to not charge.

    Yep…I definitely did that. :sob:

    The JST-PH connector’s red/black didn’t match the board’s polarity and I didn’t realize it until I connected the battery. Stupid n00b mistake!

    Also, does disconnecting the OpenScale help at all in getting the battery to charge?

    I have already tried that, but I’ll try it one more time and purchase a new board if it didn’t work.

    Thank you for your support!