A solar powered phone charger
This project was created to furfill the class requirments for Power Electionics at Walla Walla University in the Spring of 2022, taught by Dr. Rob Frohne. A simple solar powered phone charger intended to charge android smart phone devices was created.
The specifications for this charger are:
• 3W Solar Panel
• Take between 9 - 12 volts
• Output current of 333 mA
• Uses a buck converter
Our design was made using the WEBENCH design tool created by Texas Instruments
The process was simple. To use this tool we had to specify our just a few parameters which were
Input supply type (DC)
• Vin min: 14V
• Vin max: 25V
Output
• Vout: 5V
• Iout Max: 5A
Once the parameters were entered, WEBENCH gave us a variety of designs that met are specificiation.
Below is the selected design we have chosen generated from WEBENCH. It was pick becasue it was one of the only designs that used components that werem't sold out. Due to the world-wide chip shortand many designs had components that were out of stock. Fortunately, we were able to find this design.
Using Kicad we made a another schematic and PCB to get printed off. Below is the Kicad schematic and PCB
Below is a photo of a completed design
Using the power supply we got:
Output voltage: 5v
Input current: 460 mA