Ive had a number of these devices. And the number 1 thing that fails is the battery. It might also be where I am at. We have 110+F days that cause spicy pillows or failures after a year or so.
So I was wondering, is there a way to make a “daytime only” node that turns on where theres enough sunlight to power the thing, and then turns off where there is not enough sunlight?
I figure I could just get a 5V solar panel and hook it up directly to one of the nodes. I’m just nervous that it will under voltage the device over the long run if that makes sense.
A bit of a buffer battery is good.
I’ve got the opposite problem of lithium batteries freezing. But three NiMH batteries in series is close enoigh to drop-in. They’re ok with cold, maybe also heat?
Or, capacitor to even out the load. Or a super-capacitor if you want to last all night long. They’ll consume everything to charge up from empty, though.
I would say a small bank of supercapacitors and like an inexpensive 10 watt USB-C solar panel from ali Express would be a pretty good way to accomplish this. Supercapacitors, if they’re protected from rain and UV, will last a very long time and from what I understand are not vastly affected by environmental temperatures.