Hi,
I am using 2 LiPo Rider Pro boards for wireless sensors, powered by solar panels. I am getting quite low efficiencies and according to some simple tests i did, indeed in some conditions only 50% of the power taken from the battery is available for the load. I would have expected to see some of such data available in the specs, but none is. Can you do some further tests and publish the results please?
I wrote on this on my blog but your forum does not allow to put URLs.
Thanks- Tom
Hi tom,
This is songzhao from seeed ,i think something is wrong in your test ,because the test result from you is contrary to Ohm’s law, i had test this borad again ,this is my result and the efficiency is about 87%.
download/file.php?mode=view&id=1928
thanks
zhao.song
Hi Zhao Song,
Thanks for your reply and your test results. I would be interesting if you could include the efficiencies for the different loads. You are using relatively high currents (100-500mA) which i don’t believe is a typical situation for solar/battery powered sensors, that would deplete a 3000mAh LiPo battery overnight. It seems logical that most applications would run at a much lower current. Mine runs at 5-10mA. At this level, the efficiency of the LiPo Rider Pro is only 65%, which is quite poor. Below my test results (all values are measured, except when it says calculated), i included a calculated value for the resistor, based on Ohm’s law and it seems quite accurate.
Please can you also test at these low power levels.
Thanks for your good test. We will have a further test and put all information on here and the wiki. Your suggestion is very useful to us. Thanks.
Jacket
Dear Tomtobback,
YES! you are right, Lipo Rider pro have a high standby consumption. This problem due to the boost IC ISL87516 which has a poor effectively in low load. The attachment for your reference.
Thank you for pointing out this problem. We will make a upgrade in next version. 
ISL97516.pdf (477 KB)
Hi Bruce,
Thanks for the feedback and looking forward to see the new version.
If it is not finalised yet, i’d like to suggest:
1-in addition to the solar + battery connectors, also provide holes to connect wires to the board; now i have to solder extra wires on the connectors e.g. to be able to measure the voltages with my arduino
2-also, most arduino applications will run well on the 3.7-4.2V of a LiPo battery, without booster to 5V, so it would be nice to have a power connector straight from the battery (or at least holes as in point 1)
3-as many arduino applications can work on 3.3V (i am using DHTs and PIRs on 3-3.3V without problem) it would be nice to have a 3.3V low dropout voltage regulator on the board to provide a power efficient(!) stabilised 3V3
Regards- Tom
I agree with the above mentioned!
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You say the problem I have encountered, which is very troublesome, annoying, hoping to improve as soon as possible!
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