topic New Solar Panel's Not Charging in Arlo Pro

New Solar Panel's Not Charging

Drake3287 — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 18:33:36 GMT

Okay, I know few of you out there have these new solar panel's yet but yesterday I mounted my two panel's and both of my camera's appeared to be charging with the lightning bolt through the battery meter. Today I notice neither camera/battery is charging. Any idea's? Seem's strange that both panel's would be doing this. And yes, both connections have been checked.

Battery level has also not increased since the install.

Re: New Solar Panel's Not Charging

jguerdat — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 18:50:42 GMT

How strong is the sunlight on the panel? It's a small panel so proper angle relative to the sun as well as the amount of direct sunlight is important. Share or cloudy days may not charge well at all with the battery maintaining its charge being the best you can get.

Re: New Solar Panel's Not Charging

Retired_Member — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 19:54:09 GMT

Drake3287 wrote:
Okay, I know few of you out there have these new solar panel's yet but yesterday I mounted my two panel's and both of my camera's appeared to be charging with the lightning bolt through the battery meter. Today I notice neither camera/battery is charging. Any idea's? Seem's strange that both panel's would be doing this. And yes, both connections have been checked.

Battery level has also not increased since the install.

Maybe you just need to close the app and reopen it? I've had this problem where it was showing the same batt percentage for an hour with the adapter plugged in, after I closed the app and reopened it the batt percentage shot up. Btw i am using ios so double click home button and swipe up to close app.

Re: New Solar Panel's Not Charging

TomMac — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 19:58:36 GMT

look up solar panel and how they function on the internet...

If one of the cells is shaded, usu the ENTIRE panel will see a much degraded output.... they need full , direct sun so placement is important

Re: New Solar Panel's Not Charging

Drake3287 — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 21:54:46 GMT

Update: Well I guess it shows how little I know about solar panel's. Apparently "direct" sunlight is the key word. At just prior to 12 noon today the two panel's started showing a charge again. Even though they had plenty of sunlight this morning, I guess it wasn't direct enough. I never thought they would be that sensitive.

In 3 hours of "direct" sunlight so far today the batteries have charged 3 percent. Like another forum post said, charging the batteries to 100% before plugging in the panel's might be a good idea. At this slow rate it would take awhile to fully charge these batteries. I'm guessing this trickle charge of a few percent each day is just enough to keep them top offed.