“SOLAR BASED MOBILE CHARGER”

PROJECT REFERENCE NO. : 37S1422

COLLEGE : ST. JOSEPH ENGINEERING COLLEGE, MANGALORE.

BRANCH : ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION
GUIDE : SHAMA B. N.
STUDENTS : ASHLESH KUMAR
AMRA FATHIMA
AMLINE JOSNA DSOUZA
YOGISH V HEBBAR

Introduction:
In today’s environment conscious world, a lot of interest is being taken in alternate forms of
energy. Solar power is a renewable source of energy, which has become increasingly popular
in modern days. Today 80% of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels and about 1%
comes from solar energy. It is estimated that the world’s oil reserves will last for 30 to 40
years, whereas solar energy is forever. Solar energy has two big advantages over fossil fuels.
The first is in the fact that it is renewable; it is never going to run out. The second is its effect
on the environment. Burning of fossil fuels introduces many harmful pollutants into the
atmosphere and contributes to global warming and acid rain. Solar cell directly converts solar
energy into electricity. The solar cells that are connected together make up the solar panel.
This can last up-to several decades without replacement. However, there is a drawback of
solar power: energy can be produced only in the presence of sunlight. To overcome this, the
solar panels are coupled with the rechargeable batteries, which can store excess power
generated and provide energy in the absence of sunlight. Solar energy has advantages over
other renewable energy sources including wind and water power: solar power is generated
using solar panels, which do not require any major mechanical parts, such as wind turbines.
These mechanical parts can breakdown and cause maintenance issues and can also be quite
noisy. Both of these issues are virtually non-existent with solar panels. This project aims at
harvesting solar energy and storing it in a rechargeable battery. Using this battery various
low-voltage device can be charged. Also, the charge in the battery is displayed on an LCD
through a micro-controller.
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Objectives:
 Solar energy as energy source.
 Rechargeable battery as storage device.
 Multi-voltage outputs.
 Charging of various low-voltage devices.
 Battery charge analyzer.
 Display of critical conditions of the battery.

Methodology:
Block Diagram:

Figure 1: System Block Diagram

The block diagram of solar mobile charger consists of solar panel with control unit, fixed
voltage regulators, rechargeable battery, ADC, Schmitt trigger, micro-controller and an LCD.
The solar panel of 12V, 10W is used, the output of which varies based on the intensity of
incident light. This output is regulated through a control unit and is stored in a battery. This
battery produces an output of 12V which can be used directly to charge the load. A 9V fixed
output can be obtained by regulating the voltage from battery using an L7809 voltage
regulator and can be used to charge a 9V load. The battery can be regulated further to obtain

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a 5V fixed output, using L7805 and charge a 5V load. The 5V output, so obtained, is also
used to power-up the micro-controller, ADC, Schmitt trigger and the LCD. The Schmitt
trigger is used to trigger the ADC0808 which converts the analog voltage across the battery
terminals into digital. Micro-controller AT89S51 is used to display this charge on the LCD
JHD0161. The analysis of charge present in the battery is performed by scaling down the
output of rechargeable battery (12V) to 4.3V. The LCD displays the percentage of charge in
the battery, and critical conditions in the battery (if the battery is full, low, etc.)

Circuit Diagram:

Figure 2: Circuit Diagram

The solar panel is used to charge the rechargeable battery. This rechargeable battery is
interfaced with the 78L05 and 78L09 voltage regulators to charge 5V, 9V, 12V loads. The 5V
output is also used to power-up the analyzer circuit. Analyzer circuit consists of Schmitt
trigger, ADC, Micro-controller and LCD. The Schmitt trigger CD4093 acts as the timer to
ADC, generating a clock of 550kHz frequency. The ADC analyzes the voltage across the
battery terminals and converts it into digital form. The micro-controller displays the charge in
the battery on the LCD. It also displays whether the battery is fully charged and if the battery
charge is below 20%, stating “low battery”. The Schmitt trigger frequency can be varied by
varying the external resistor, capacitor values. The digitized output from the ADC (AD0-AD7)

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transfers the voltage across the battery terminals in digital form to the port 1 of the micro-
controller. The voltage-divider circuit scales-down the battery terminal voltage to a maximum
of 5V. Based on this voltage, the micro-controller analyzes the charge in the battery and
displays this on the LCD through port 2. The flowchart to analyze the charge in the
rechargeable battery is shown in the figure 3.

Figure 3: Flowchart to analyze the charge in the battery

Result:
The table 1 indicates the time taken to fully charge the battery using the solar panel at
different times on a day in summer.

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 Table 1: Time required charging a battery

Around 7am (morning) 2 hours

Around 10am (morning) 1 hours 15 minutes

Around 1pm (noon) 35 minutes

Around 5pm (evening) 1 hour 35 minutes

The table 2 shows the voltage across the solar panel at various times on a day. The following
readings were taken on 1st May 2014(day was cloudy).

Table 2: Voltage across solar panel

Time Max. Voltage (in V) Time Max. Voltage (in V)

6am 2 1pm 14

7am 3.5 2pm 14

8am 6 3pm 10

9am 9 4pm 8.5

10am 10 5pm 6

11am 12 6pm 3

12pm 13 7pm 1.5

Figure 4: Hardware implementation of the device

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 Figure 5: Charge state displayed on LCD

Applications:
• To charge mobile phone and camera (digital as well as CC cameras).

• MP3, CD and MD players can be charged.

• This device can also be used to charge batteries of portable DVD, smart card readers,
etc.
• To charge laptop, I-pods, tablets, blue-tooth devices etc.
• To power 2W bulbs in hut, bed-lamps, low-watt lights, etc.

Conclusion:
Solar act as good power supplies in bright sunlight. The only problem is the unregulated
voltage due to the variation in intensity of light. Voltage regulator is used to solve this
problem by regulating the output voltage. The charge so obtained is stored in the battery and
is given to the respective loads. The charge present in this battery is analyzed and displayed
on an LCD using a micro-controller.

Future scope:
• Solar energy can only be harnessed when it is daytime and sunny. To overcome this,
solar panels can be coupled with back-up battery which can store the excess power
generated during the day and use it to provide energy to system in the absence of
sunlight.
• The Lead-acid battery used in the design is large in size and heavy in weight which
makes the device non-portable. Hence a battery of pocket size and optimal weight
may be designed to make the device portable.

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• The large size of the solar panel makes the device bulky and non-portable. The solar
panel should be fabricated to cover the entire device, which can effectively reduce the
size of the entire device.