What voltage is the panel and what will you use for Vdd? 5v Vdd I assume?
The voltage output of the panel varies from 4V to 10V (Will not exceed 10V). I intend to shut the PIC down if the output of the solar panel is lower than 4V. Apart from that, I intend to power-up my PIC using the power directly from the solar panel.
If it's more than 5V you just need a potential divider to drop the voltage to within a 0-5V range. Don't worry about possible loss of accuracy, Oznog always seems to scaremonger on this point? - any loss of accuracy is EXTREMELY small, of no consequence for your purposes.
But instead of droping the voltage level to a range of 0-5V, is there a way where I can scale the values down? Something like: What ever reading value I obtain from the solar panel's output, I make sure it is being divided by 2 before being applied to the ADC input of the PIC using a voltage divider, like you mentioned.
Meaning, overall, I do the following: By having 2 ADC inputs,
a.) one would be an input of a "limited to 5V input". At this point, if the PIC reads a value of lower than 4V, I shut off the PIC.
b.) another would be an input of a "voltage from the solar panel divided by two". This will be the one to control my PWM duty ratio.
By the way, the duty ratio will be used to control my on/off of a MOSFET and I need approximately 16mA to turn it on. Would like to confirm, about this: Does it mean that if the voltage used to power-up my PIC is 4V, I will obtained an output current of approx. 20mA? Whereas if it is 3V, it will be approx. 15mA?