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Monitoring Battery Voltage

A project log for Solar Powered WiFi Weather Station V2.0

A solar-powered ESP8266 based Weather Station, which can run years without taking power from an external source

open-green-energyOpen Green Energy 04/18/2019 at 09:410 Comments

The weather station is run by a 18650 Li-Ion battery, so it is very important to monitor its status. The max voltage input to the Wemos board is around 3.2~3.3V but a fully charged 18650 battery voltage is 4.2V. So to measure this voltage we have to step down the voltage by using a voltage divider network.

The Wemos D1 mini already has an internal voltage divider that connects the A0 pin to the ADC of the ESP8266 chip. The voltage divider is made up off 220k (R1) and 100k (R2). So, we have to add an external resistance with the inbuilt 220k resistor to read the battery voltage. By using a 100k resistance we can measure the max voltage of the battery, but taking some margin, a 220k resistor is selected. It is named R1 on the PCB board and located just above the battery holder.

To select the voltage divider resistance values, you can use this online calculator.

You can also read this article on battery voltage monitoring.

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