USB charging specs for CrazyFlie2... solar power...

Discussions and questions about the Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter
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Astrobiologist
Beginner
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Jan 19, 2018 10:35 pm

USB charging specs for CrazyFlie2... solar power...

Post by Astrobiologist »

A colleague of mine had some very off the wall ideas for drones, which got me thinking. I will break them down into a couple of threads.

Right, first off, what are the charging parameters for the CrazyFlie2 to successfully charge over the USB port?
I.e what voltage and current?

Specifically, someone suggested to me a solar powered drone, which surely wouldn't work, but it got me thinking: a self-charging drone might work.
For instance, imagine a drone with a small solar panel, that lands, partially recharges its battery, makes a small flight, lands, recharges, etc...
Even with only partial recharges, you could perhaps continue this indefinitely - an "immortal" drone that could in theory cross a continent.

This is almost testable, if one could at least charge the battery from a panel over USB. So what does the solar panel have to supply to the USB port?

Many thanks in advance
arnaud
Bitcraze
Posts: 2538
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:36 pm

Re: USB charging specs for CrazyFlie2... solar power...

Post by arnaud »

Hi and thanks for splitting in threads :-).

When we designed Crazyflie 2.0 we actually had solar charge as an idea to guide the design of the deck port. As a result, the USB charging lines are available on the deck port which means that in theory one could make a solar deck. The same VUSB is connected to the USB port and to the deck port.

We had similar ideas as you have: the Crazyflie would have to land and charge, to be able to fly again later.

You can find more about the Crazyflie electronic in the schematic: https://wiki.bitcraze.io/projects:crazy ... schematics. The battery charger is a BQ24075, the documentation states that the minimum input voltage should be 4.35V. I guess you should aim at providing 5V nominal.
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