Capstone: solar-powered GPS tracker
Everything together: a solar panel and charge controller keep a LiFePO4 battery up, a buck converter makes 5 V, the ESP32 reads the NEO-6M GPS over a serial port and posts its position through the A7670 LTE modem.
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How it works
Power: solar → controller → 12.8 V LiFePO4 → breaker → buck 5 V → ESP32, GPS and modem. Data: GPS NMEA (9600 baud) → ESP32 → AT commands (115200 baud) → LTE → cloud.
Check each block with what you have learned: the energy budget (Tools → Power budget), the converter’s efficiency (Tools → Power path), the serial data (the monitor), and the bill of materials before you buy.
Try it on the bench
- Open the serial monitor and wait for a GPS fix and the first post.
- Set the sun to night on the panel and see how long the battery would last (Readings on the battery).
- Open Tools → Bill of materials: this is the shopping list for the real build.
Parts on the bench
- Solar panel
- Solar charge controller
- LiFePO4 battery
- DC breaker
- Step-down converter
- ESP32 DevKit
- GPS module
- 4G LTE module
In the course
Zen’s Electronics Design Mastery, module “Capstone — Connected Tracker”.