Download Final Paper - Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer

The solar panel device reads the current sensor’s measurement as an analog signal. The
PIC24 uses its third analog to digital conversion channel to convert the analog signal to a
digital and numerical value.
Once connected to the base station’s WLAN, the solar panel device will establish a telnet
connection. It will transmit the current sensor’s data and other calculations every 15
seconds. An example telnet command: echo “11.321 <br />” >> c.txt. The echo
command copies the text within the double quotations to the screen, and the >> command
takes the copied text from the screen and appends it to the filename that follows.
Below is a picture of the Solar Panel Device’s Explorer 16 Board with attached ZG2100
module and current sensor.
Figure 60 – Solar Panel Device
Buck Switching Regulator
The over end selection for the buck convertor was limited due to constraints need for the
design as well as the process of implementing the design. The change from a Buck-Boost
regulator to just a Buck regulator stems from the fact that the Buck Boost combination
lends itself to more complexity and even more limit to the type of regulator used. The
overall prototype construction lent to the selection of a different chip then originally
intended. The original chip, the lm5116 was intended for this use but was too difficult to
implement as it was a surface mount part. The figure bellow shows our attempt at
mounting the chip to prototype via a breadboard.
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