The idea behind the board is to cut the cord. All thats needed is a battery and a solar panel, and you can install a Pi where ever its needed. Be it a camera for your back yard or a weather station on a mountain, Pi can be there. On the Pi0W Solar is a Microchip MCP73871 VPCC battery charger to keep the power where its needed most, a Ti TPS63061 Buck booster to keep the Pi0W at 5V, and a Maxim MAX17043 to feed real time battery data over i2C.
Currently I have several working models thanks to our friends at OSHPark, OSH Stencils, and Maker HQ Sacramento.
I have finished the first prototypes. Now is the time to share. The boards work great charging and the buck booster keeps the Pi running smoothly. Now it is time to focus on the software side. The MAX17043 has no real software to run on the Pi. I used some examples and did a lot of simple serial test with an Arduino. Nothing has been done to use the Pi to monitor the battery.