Mini Weather Station
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I am curious what kind of battery life you are getting with the 9 volt battery? I tried a sensor with a 9 volt battery and the useful battery duration was less than ideal.
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@jtm312 I don't recall exactly how much I was getting on mine, but I don't think it was that much. Are you using 3.3 or 5 volt pro minis?
@dbemowsk I am using the 3.3V pro minis. It is the one pictured at the top of this thread. I started out by getting about a week. The big difference came after removing the LEDs, as they were using most of the power. Also sleeping most of the time.
A good quality 9v also helped. Other humidity sensors can also cut the power drain.
I have also built version using 2xAAA batteries, but I find that it doesn't take long before the voltages drops below the useful voltage for the radio and starts to cause a range problem. The next version I am planning on going back to using the onboard regulator with 4xAA batteries.
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@dbemowsk I am using the 3.3V pro minis. It is the one pictured at the top of this thread. I started out by getting about a week. The big difference came after removing the LEDs, as they were using most of the power. Also sleeping most of the time.
A good quality 9v also helped. Other humidity sensors can also cut the power drain.
I have also built version using 2xAAA batteries, but I find that it doesn't take long before the voltages drops below the useful voltage for the radio and starts to cause a range problem. The next version I am planning on going back to using the onboard regulator with 4xAA batteries.
@jtm312 I am using 2 AA's on my humidity sensor and that is working very well. The radios are rated I believe down to 1.9 volts. Using the regulator is going to give you more power drain on your batteries. When using 2 AA batteries, there is no need for the regulator at all. Many people say to disconnect it because it can still cause power drain. In my project I just didn't connect to the RAW pin, thus the regulator is not being used. So far I have not seen any issues with the regulator affecting anything.
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@jtm312 I am using 2 AA's on my humidity sensor and that is working very well. The radios are rated I believe down to 1.9 volts. Using the regulator is going to give you more power drain on your batteries. When using 2 AA batteries, there is no need for the regulator at all. Many people say to disconnect it because it can still cause power drain. In my project I just didn't connect to the RAW pin, thus the regulator is not being used. So far I have not seen any issues with the regulator affecting anything.
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Yes NRF24 can run down to 1.9V. ATMega328 on the Arduino down to 2V. So problem is probably the BOD resetting below 2.7V.
I advise to update bootloader to use a 1MHz version and remove BOD or set it to lower value. Using an arduino nano as a programmer (with ArduinoISP sketch) it is very easy.
Then just use i2c sensors to allow low voltage and you just need to sleep all the time except a fraction of a second at every measurement. With that you get years of battery life.
I use CR2032 for door and temp/hum/light sensors and my oldest sensor on my entrance door is nearly one year old and voltage of battery is less than 0.1V down, on a chinese low quality cell. -
Yes NRF24 can run down to 1.9V. ATMega328 on the Arduino down to 2V. So problem is probably the BOD resetting below 2.7V.
I advise to update bootloader to use a 1MHz version and remove BOD or set it to lower value. Using an arduino nano as a programmer (with ArduinoISP sketch) it is very easy.
Then just use i2c sensors to allow low voltage and you just need to sleep all the time except a fraction of a second at every measurement. With that you get years of battery life.
I use CR2032 for door and temp/hum/light sensors and my oldest sensor on my entrance door is nearly one year old and voltage of battery is less than 0.1V down, on a chinese low quality cell. -
it depends if you want the high power version or use the standard rfm69w at 17dBm and you will be fine to use it down to 1.8V (of course it will work also a little over 3.3V too)
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Great device. Why not use a solar power station, like in a solar garden light. Not very good at power equations. What else you going to hook to this? rain gauge, wind speed .... Thanks
