Battery powered sensor last 1 week
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@Martin-Tellblom - Put the multimeter in series with VCC. Dont forget to change the input on your multimeter.
Be aware that depending on the mesurement range a multimeter could introduce a big burdan voltage.
Just simple and short: To measure in the mA range you the multmeter measures the voltage drop accross a series resistor with an value .. call it A.
Switching to the µA range the mutltimeter switches to a much larger resistor (e.g. 1000times A) to measure a significat enough voltage drop. With the wrong voltage range .. measuring µA while the board is consuming in the mA range might lead to a huge voltage drop and your circuit not working at all.
So do this:
- Switch to mA mode .. take your measurement .. wait until you KNOW for sure your circuit is in sleep mode (add some messages on the serial console) and THEN switch to µA range.
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I don't think my multimeter is good enough for this, It seems like it put in some power due if I
I will try this when I get home today and see if I need a new multimeter or not :)
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and with a multimeter only, due to burden voltage and depending of the multimeter precision, you won't get the true power consumption, an approx which is still nice, you can know what "looks" power consumption and tendancy. Even if you're using a nice expensive Fluke. Best precision for this is uCurrent Gold+multimeter ;)
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Or just simply take percentage and date/time and then a few days later see what has changed percentage wise ...
Its to simple I know but if 1% battery power equals 4 days the sensor probably last for about 9-10 month (the last percentage I suppose you don't get any communication with :) )MySensors MQTT Client Gateway, Openhab, Dashing, Razberry, 1-wire
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Or just simply take percentage and date/time and then a few days later see what has changed percentage wise ...
Its to simple I know but if 1% battery power equals 4 days the sensor probably last for about 9-10 month (the last percentage I suppose you don't get any communication with :) )@Martin-Tellblom - Im not sure it works that way. It depends on which battery you use.
Voltage tends to drop faster in the end for normal AA batteries.My sensors doesnt drop that much (maybe 5%) the first 6 months.
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@sundberg84 Hmm What you are saying is that I need to buy a new and better Multimeter :) This is the reason I was waiting for ..... :9
MySensors MQTT Client Gateway, Openhab, Dashing, Razberry, 1-wire
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@sundberg84 Hmm What you are saying is that I need to buy a new and better Multimeter :) This is the reason I was waiting for ..... :9
@Martin-Tellblom - I hope you dont give up! Battery operations was the hardest part for me to figure out...
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I only have two kind of sensors that I need to be battery operated and that's the plants warning that they are out of water and soon gonna die and the dogs water bowl warning that they soon gonna die (KIDDING). The dogs bowl I like to measure the levels and have that to compare with the temperature, just for fun.
I hope I get this working aswell, It wont be pretty with a cable around the few plants we got -
@Martin-Tellblom , I'm in this mess as well. Just ordered a new Multimeter off aliexpress :)
@sundberg84 , have you tried other batteries? I bough some ultrafire 3.7V 8800mAh and will try these.
They were cheap so no loss if they do not work out.. -
@sundberg84 said:
to HIGH to power the sensor and then LOW before you sleep the node.
If you have a multimeter
Alright so if I connect the Vcc sron the sensor to D2 (since I use D3 for measurement) and set that HIGH before I measure, should I have a sleep for it to power up aswell?
Something Like this?
digitalWrite(SOIL_POWER_PIN , HIGH); delayMicroseconds(25); moisture = analogRead(SOIL_SENSE_PIN); delayMicroseconds(25); digitalWrite(SOIL_POWER_PIN , LOW);@Martin-Tellblom said:
Alright so if I connect the Vcc sron the sensor to D2
Hello, you should use another digital pin than D2 as it is used by MySensors library and on the EastPCB it is connected to the INT pin of the NRF24. I had problems using D2 pin before because of this reason. Use D4,5,6,7 or 8 and you will be sure to have no problem.
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@Martin-Tellblom , I'm in this mess as well. Just ordered a new Multimeter off aliexpress :)
@sundberg84 , have you tried other batteries? I bough some ultrafire 3.7V 8800mAh and will try these.
They were cheap so no loss if they do not work out..@Nicklas-Starkel - Nope I have not, but @AWI has experienced with some other batteries and i know he recommends some sort to be able to avoid the booster.
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Alright, my sensor has used 5% battery in 124,5 hrs that means that 100% is almost 104 days. Don't know how low the battery works but let say 20% at that is 83 days.
I will start another test with D4 and see how that goes .....
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@Martin-Tellblom said:
Alright so if I connect the Vcc sron the sensor to D2
Hello, you should use another digital pin than D2 as it is used by MySensors library and on the EastPCB it is connected to the INT pin of the NRF24. I had problems using D2 pin before because of this reason. Use D4,5,6,7 or 8 and you will be sure to have no problem.
@Nca78 - good! And i have this fixed with a jumper in the upcoming rev 9 of EasyPCB as well so it will be possible to use D2.
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@Martin-Tellblom , how is your project going!
Did you manage to get longer lasting nodes?I have one reed magnetic switch. It seems this only draws 7-10ua in sleep mode and upwards 17ma when sending.
However, it still drains my batteries very quick which I find odd.
It wakes up once every hour to send and that should not be much..
Could be that my rechargable battery is bad so I'll try to replace it with 2AA instead of one 3,7v. -
@Martin-Tellblom , how is your project going!
Did you manage to get longer lasting nodes?I have one reed magnetic switch. It seems this only draws 7-10ua in sleep mode and upwards 17ma when sending.
However, it still drains my batteries very quick which I find odd.
It wakes up once every hour to send and that should not be much..
Could be that my rechargable battery is bad so I'll try to replace it with 2AA instead of one 3,7v.@Nicklas-Starkel
I did not with the Soil Moisture sensor. I choose the easy way to use the Xiaomi Mi plant sensor that I check with BlueTooth instead.But I did succeed with a DHT22 sensor that now have been running 32 days and sending every hour with battery level of 98% now so that one is a success.
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The DHT22 sensor will also quickly use all your battery power
Replace your NRF24L01+ module, I have had a few that consume too much power, and drain the battery...@bjacobse @Martin-Tellblom I have DHT22 sensor lasting 1.5year, no worries but there are better options! (Both battery and for how good the can measure).
Controller: Proxmox VM - Home Assistant
MySensors GW: Arduino Uno - W5100 Ethernet, Gw Shield Nrf24l01+ 2,4Ghz
MySensors GW: Arduino Uno - Gw Shield RFM69, 433mhz
RFLink GW - Arduino Mega + RFLink Shield, 433mhz -
@bjacobse @Martin-Tellblom I have DHT22 sensor lasting 1.5year, no worries but there are better options! (Both battery and for how good the can measure).
@sundberg84
Can I assume that you are using power to DHT22 via a FET or directly from Arduino pin, so you are controlling when the DHT22 is getting power/voltage?
I personally think using a DHT22 that requires min 3.3 V is not a good option for battery device - but I understand it can be managed ;-)http://www.datasheetcafe.com/dht22-datasheet-pdf/
DHT22:
My opinion is is use HTU21D instead since it can operate on a much lower battery voltage. Watch out, some breakout boards have a 3,3V voltage regulator, that is just using battery consumption and isn't needed when using Arduino 3.3V 1Mhz battery operated
