Lipos
Yes, you are right. It is quite sluggish also. I’m looking at getting this thing to self charge from solar and have looked at lipos. My concern is lack of knowledge in that area. I would have to place 2 x 3.7v in series to get required power. I have plenty Li-Ion batteries laying around and would be great if I could put them to use. How can I charge that through solar? Is it ok to charge 2 in series? If not, how to balance charge from solar?
1 reply
Our fellow member Krumlink
Our fellow member Krumlink was looking into making a charger for a dual cell LiPo (also works for dual cell LiIon) by using a MCP73213 chip. He did not complete this project unfortunatelly, but perhaps you can take a look at the chip’s data sheet and make your own charger. I think that will be my next step. There are LiIon batteries out there with the same size as regular AA and AAA cells so you can use a regular battery holder for a couple of cells in series. This will reduce the weight of the robot, not as much as a LiPo, but at least it will charge from a USB port or wall USB charger.