Weather Station

|FINISHED SCHEMTIC DRAFT| In the many session I put into getting a rough draft of my weather station, I changed some ICs, added new things, and connected everything up. First of all, I added ESD protection ICs to both USB-C ports, and swapped the GPS module I had before, for one with a already integrated GPS receiver. Also, I swapped the AMS1117 3.3V linear regulator for a MCP16362T buck converter that will convert high solar panel voltage to 3.3V more efficiently, therefore saving battery power. Furthermore, I added a cell balancing circuit to keep the battery cells balance to prevent any future damage to the battery cells.

|Started BMS Schematic| In this session, I researched how to build the BMS system and implemented some of the circuitry needed to run the ICs.

|Worked on schematic| In this session I added more of the the decoupling and power components to the ICs, and drafted wiring of USB functionality to both MCUs.

|Organized Schematic| In this session, I added some new ICs and organized the schematic. It took a couple of days of research to start picking a good IC for the battery Management System, but I settled on the LTC4015 from Analog Devices. The LTC4015 supports LiFePO4 battery chemistry and includes built-in power-path circuitry and MPPT for solar panels. I decided on a 2S2P (2 batteries in series, with each series having 2 batteries in parallel) to get good voltage and capacity.

|Started Project| This is my first Session designing my Weather station PCB. I am building a weather station to expand my knowledge of sensors, low-power systems, battery-powered systems, and RF. In this first session, I added most of the sensors that are being used in the weather station and the two MCUs. All in all, this was a quick session to layout all the components I want in my weather station.