Need help with solar light PCB design.

[convoy84]

Hello all!

I am trying to design a simple solar light PCB to use when I make projects.  This is the first time I have attempted Circuit design and I’m not very good at making schematics yet.  I recently got in the first prototype batch and I can’t get it to work after soldering my components to it.  I tried troubleshooting it myself but have had no luck.  Can anyone take a look and see if they can see any obvious mistakes or point me in the right direction?

I started with the QX5252f datasheet and added a capacitor, diode and switch. I think I must have a connection wrong, I have successfully made this circuit on a breadboard.

I have included pictures of the board and the schematic from EasyEDA.

Any help would be appreciated!

[strawberry]

joule thief circuit

[Marco]

The way you draw schematics hurts my brain. You make life difficult on yourself by not drawing the voltage rails similar to the datasheet, that's probably what caused you to connect the solar panel wrong, Strawberry has it right.

[convoy84]

Thanks for the help!

Now I can clearly see I connected the negative solar panel to battery positive.    I broke the trace and bodged a wire to the negative and now it works!  In the revised schematic what advantage is there to moving the switch to ground instead? The diode and LEDS are flipped also, is this just better for routing?

[strawberry]

IC leakage current
switch contact arc can produce some over voltage spikes (need voltage clamp circuits RC/RCD)
to shorten PCB inductive loop. some 100n across powersupply near IC

[rooppoorali]

You can also see these designs:

https://www.pcbway.com/project/share/Solar_light_Board.html

[floobydust]

OP, I see a couple mistakes in your circuit, and unfortunately your PCB.
The two LED's, C1 should connect to BATT(-) not to BATT(+). edit: solar cell as well.  The circuit won't operate.
Your inductor value is huge at 1mH, it is more typically 33-100uH.
D1 1N4148 loses more voltage than a Schottky part like 1N5817, so the 1N4148 is not as efficient.