Sunny Buddy power issue

Components & Accessories Power
1

I have a project where I’m using a solar panel, the Sunny Buddy board, a battery, and a motor and I want to know how the system is getting power and how the system behaves. For example, Does the Sunny Buddy charges the battery and power the load simultaneously? if the battery is charged and the solar panel is exposed to the sun does the load gets powered by the panel or the battery? If the battery is discharged and the panel is exposed to the sun, does the load get power? or does it wait from the battery to get charged first?

I discharged the battery and exposed the panel to the sun and the load just didn’t work. I thought that in this scenario the load would get the power from the solar panel. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work (even charge controller in general)? because if that it works then I’m probably doing something wrong.

Now that my testings, the way I believe the Sunny Buddy works is that the load only takes power from the battery (which got its power from the panel) but never from the panel directly.

So can someone explain to me if I’m correct in making this assumption?

Another thing, in my project, the loads needs to get power from the panel when it can, and just use the battery at night. So is there an alternative MPPT charge controller you suggest?

(Note: The system works perfectly when the battery is charged)

The components I’m using are:

  • 9V 3W Solar Panel

  • Sunny Buddy

  • 1Ah LiPo Battery (The battery I used to discharge and check if the load can get power directly from the panel is 500mAh)

  • Step Up 5V converter.

  • 5V dc motor

I apologize for the long explanation and the broad question.

  • Motlaq
2

Hi Motlaq,

The Sunny Buddy is only a Solar Charger. It will not directly power an attached load. We cover this and much more in the [Sunny Buddy Solar Charger Hookup Guide.

To power your load directly from the panel, you would need to re-route the output of the panel to your project’s power input. That is going to drastically affect the effectiveness of the Sunny Buddy so you will most likely need to figure out an alternative way to power your project while the Sunny Buddy charges the battery. This is the only solar charger SparkFun carries so we do not have any others to suggest that may work better for your project.](Sunny Buddy Solar Charger V13 Hookup Guide - SparkFun Learn)