It’s now very apparent to me that it would be cool (indeed, necessary) to monitor the charging current and power supplied by the solar cell array. It’s become necessary since I’ve found that the solar cells I’ve been using can’t simultaneously charge the LiPo cells AND power the weather station at the same time. I was wondering what was going on; even in full sun and charging current on the TP4056 cut down to 500mA instead of 1A, when I plug in the weather station, the charging LED goes extinguishes or flashes, and eventually the LiPo runs out of juice. I could replace the red and blue onboard LEDs on the TP4056 module with opto-isolators and connect them to the MCP23008 GPIO expander I’m using since I have spare I/O pins. If I was designing my own battery management system (BMS), I would do just that: ditch the power-consuming LEDs and use opto-isolators for monitoring battery status. BUT, I’ve been using Gemini AI and have found a way to use the data from a newly added INA219 power monitor IC to determine full charge in software.
I’m also rethinking the solar panel; instead of two 6-volt panels in parallel, I bought five 5-volt 200mA panels from Amazon and I’m connecting these in parallel on a common bus. That’s 5 volts or more in direct sunlight and a possible 1,000mA capability. That SHOULD be more than enough to power the weather station PCB AND charge the LiPo battery. I’ll post pics of the new solar “array” and results.