1 wire solar sensor

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1

Hi all

Any ideas appreciated with this one.

I’ve put my 1 wire solar sensor inside a plastic box and created a hole for the solar sensor. The solar sensor is mounted inside the box that hobby boards provides. My question is, i’ve noticed that the lips of the side of the hole on the plastic main box (even though they are 2-3mm tall) seem to be casting a shadow on the lens at certain times of day, lowering the reading. Is there any way I can avoid this apart from the obvious ditch the box (needed for water proofing), or filing down the sides? Would a lens or “bubble” of some sort affect the readings (above normal raising or lowering of readings?) or would it have the desired affect of allowing light in from most angles, avoiding the shadow?

Any help or comments from people with experience of this kind of thing would be appreciated.

Thank you

2

My enclosure is made out of pvc. I extended the diode from the board and covered the diode with a ping pong ball. Thats what most people use for a difuser for the diode so it doesnt overheat.

3

That sounds like a good idea, does the ping pong ball block sunlight though? (obviously not as it seems to be employed by a few people).

4

Use a white one, it does reduce the sun somewhat and also acts as a diffuser, both are good, the unit is very sensitive and can overload.

5

Time for a dumb question…

I have just setup one but what I am noticing is that WD is not counting hours. Is there something else that needs to be done?

6

do you have the switch on in the solar setup and do you have the lat/long for max solar set correctly?
and then check the solar %,when that is over the threshold for sunshine, the sunshine hours will be increased

7

by " threshold for sunshine" do you me the % for “Sunny”? IE: If the threshold for sunny is set to 75% and the actual % is 80, then the hours will be increased

8

yes