Rechargeable Solar Batteries Aa

Im charging a AA rechargeable battery using a solar panel, After ...

Im charging a Rechargeable AA battery using a 2.4W Solar panel. The batteries are connected through a USB port. They are exposed to 6 hours of sunlight, They seem charged after, However the batteries do not retain the charge and get very quickly drained. my question is why is the battery getting drained after showing 87% of charge.

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Two thoughts, which may or may not be right.

The panel may not be putting out as much power as you think. Most likely, the panel is just out there in one orientation, not following the sun. If it’s just basically the panel wired directly to the battery, then I suspect the charging current is actually quite small. You could verify this by connecting an ammeter in place of the battery.

My second thought is that whatever is indicating the state of charge on the battery is not at all accurate.

The battery is clearly not getting fully charged. You need a charge controller with your solar panel to properly control the flow of electricity. And the solar panel must put out more voltage than the fully charged battery does or else it will never fully charge the battery even with the charge controller. So you need to know more than just how many watts the solar panel can make, you need to know it’s voltage. And keep in mind that the 2.4W rating is no doubt the maximum you can get under ideal conditions. If you don’t keep moving the panel to point exactly at the Sun all the time you will loose some power. This requires turning the panel slowly all day to follow the Sun. Just setting out in the sun and walking away for 6 hours will result is less than 2.4W most of the time.