leexin89 WROTE:I beg to differ. I've tested to Fio on USB power alone and the programming/XBee won't run - unless I plug in a Li-po battery. So powering it from USB is out of the question, which comes back to my original question:
whether I can solder a solar panel onto the Fio's charge port directly and use solar panel as a power source to charge the battery if sunlight is available?
That's weird! From the schematic and the
tutorial that we did for Arduino Fio, it can be powered with USB connection during program loading and during usage.
Looking at
schematic of Fio, the USB power will go through battery charger become Vbatt, further go through a PTC, then the slide switch, finally to 3.3V voltage regulator and to supply the microcontroller.
Back to your question, can solar panel be used? Well, I will check the datasheet of the battery charger which is
MCP73831, the maximum input voltage is 6V, so as long as you make sure the solar output does not exceed 6V, it should be working fine!