I had an electrical problem where things burnt up. The batteries are reading fully charged, but the solar panel is only displaying 8V (should be ~40). I’m not sure what went wrong. I attached a picture of the raspberry pi unit that caught fire (photos of other equipment added in reply to this message).
Could this have been a lightning issue? I want to figure out the cause before I rebuild the station with new items. Any insight you have on this matter would be most helpful.
Sure looks like a lightning strike to me. Nothing that combustible in the pi unit so the charring was caused by a lot of current like 100’s of Amps!
Thanks Jim! Of course this is one that I have in a tree. I’m obviously going to replace the other equipment, but do I need to replace the solar panel and batteries? Batteries were displaying a full charge, but solar panel was only at 8.2V.
Also, here is a photo of the dc/dc converter and the power cable with the blown-up sunsaver just peeking into frame
Check the panel in full sun for open circuit voltage and short circuit current and see if it matches specs. If there is no obvious physical damage but doesn’t meet the OC and SC specs you will need a new solar panel. The batteries are probably ok if they show full charge but you might do a load test and check electrolyte levels if they are FLA (car battery).
