Instructions

Capturing Data From a Charge and Discharge Cycle
In order to work out the key parameters of your system, you need to do a complete
charge and discharge cycle.
1. Charge your system up completely by arranging for the Solar Panel to be near a
bright light or in sunlight. As the system charges up you will see the graph line in
MakeCode increasing and the number at the top right of the graph will get bigger
and bigger before it stops. On our system, the charging stopped at about 800.
2. Now discharge the system totally by pressing button B which turns the fan on,
and you will see the graph line slowly decreasing and the number at the bottom
right of the graph reducing. On our system, the fan stopped at about 218, but it
might vary slightly on your system.
3. Because there might have already been some stored charge in your system
when you did step 1, re-do step 1 again to fully charge the system, so you get a
really accurate set of readings.
You now have a complete data log containing the biggest and smallest stored
charge readings (Top of Charge – TOC, and Bottom of Charge – BOC), how long it
takes to charge up from your light source, and how long it takes to use all that
energy by running the fan.
Downloading Data
To download the data file, first pause the capture so no more new data comes in, by
pressing the red button at the top. Then press the little document icon at the far
right of the graph to download the data into your normal downloads folder.
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