I’ve doing alot of thinking and not much building on the logger I mentioned last week, but in the case that was a good thing.
As it turns out, I can use a simple voltage divider to wrangle the input voltage (~0-15vdc, I hope) into something the arduino can deal with (0-5vdc). Much simpler than I thought.
I probably will need to order a 0-5vdc meter though instead of using the 12v one I have on-hand since I can’t find an equally simple way to step-up the 5v from the board to 12 (at least not using parts I have in stock).
I could forgo the meter (just use LED’s) but what fun would that be?
So hopefully this weekend I’ll get a chance to work on the case and such and do a dry-run with a smaller solar panel I have in the basement. If that goes well I’ll get the rest of the parts ordered and get it ready for the real test in the cabin in November.
I’m still planning on taking only one measurement but if this goes well (and I can get some external memory working) I’ll add a few more inputs to measure pre-charge-controller voltage, amperage, temperature and maybe battery voltage (as opposed to charging voltage) as well.