๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK
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@Mishka said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
I'll be grateful if you will share your findings.
Yes, of course. I ordered it just today, so I'll update you after it arrives if I learn anything from it. I suspect the wiring issue you flagged may allow the width to be reduced but prevent the length from being shortened. Anyhow, if not this one, then probably some other solar cell exists that can be trimmed to fit after-the-fact--hopefully one with good efficiency!
As for the cypress solar beacon, it actually does a little more than just that: it broadcasts the temperature and humidity from a couple of onboard sensors. Nonetheless, Cypress describes it this way: "The Solar BLE Sensor is ultra-low power and works with just solar energy." ... and yet, isn't that a small battery I see on it? Maybe it's rechargeable, and cypress opted for that so as to save space as compared to a supercap? I haven't looked into it, but that's my guess.
I'd say they did a good job of squeezing it down to the size of quarter. It makes me wonder just how much smaller it could be made. Interestingly, even though the solar panel takes up a lot of board real estate, it's not much worse than a coin cell battery. So, if it could still run on a solar panel that's even smaller, then the whole thing could be shrunk even more, and then solar would be an even more tangible bonus than merely not needing to change batteries.
@NeverDie said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
... and yet, isn't that a small battery I see on it? Maybe it's rechargeable, and cypress opted for that so as to save space as compared to a supercap? I haven't looked into it, but that's my guess.
I think I may have found the part: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/elna-america/DCK-3R3E224U-E/604-1007-ND/970168
The picture seems to match. So, not a battery after all, but rather a supercap (one with rather high ESR). Likely 220mF, or thereabouts. -
Powerfilm makes a thin film solar cell which they say is good for energy harvesting at 200 lux and less. According to their flyer, at 200 lux it says the expected power is 220uW for the panel included in their Nordic nRF52832 solar development kit. However, at 100 lux the expected power is not 110uW (which would have been my guess), but instead only "1,430uW"! (Even though it's a USA based company, I'm assuming they're using the European convention of a comma instead of a period for decimal notation)
https://www.powerfilmsolar.com/media/cms/Indoor_Solar_Development_Kit_with_N_A90DF4062ABC1.pdf
Since they're "official" datapoints, I thought it worth reporting, not for the absolute magnitudes (which presumably should be a function of panel size) but for the relative magnitudes. I'd be curious if other types of solar cells also degrade as quickly when going from 200 lux down to 100 lux or whether some manage to do a lot better in terms of energy made available for harvesting. If not, then without resorting to larger panels it sounds as though somewhere around 100 lux or higher is the practical limit for small footprint sensors.
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Looks good, I am wondering about the high power, cannot imagine :thinking_face: because meanwhile I tested the ECS300, used in Enocean products, also designed for low light (200 Lux) with amorphous crystalline cells. But the MPP is only about 160ยตW @ 1000(!) Lux.
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Looks good, I am wondering about the high power, cannot imagine :thinking_face: because meanwhile I tested the ECS300, used in Enocean products, also designed for low light (200 Lux) with amorphous crystalline cells. But the MPP is only about 160ยตW @ 1000(!) Lux.
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Looks good, I am wondering about the high power, cannot imagine :thinking_face: because meanwhile I tested the ECS300, used in Enocean products, also designed for low light (200 Lux) with amorphous crystalline cells. But the MPP is only about 160ยตW @ 1000(!) Lux.
@iiibelst said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
I am wondering about the high power, cannot imagine because meanwhile I tested the ECS300, used in Enocean products, also designed for low light (200 Lux) with amorphous crystalline cells. But the MPP is only about 160ยตW @ 1000(!) Lux.
I suspect it's primarily a size thing. The ECS300 is lower power at least in part because it's comparatively tiny: just 35mmx12.8mm and with a short-circuit current of 6.5ua at 200 lux.
https://media.digikey.com/PDF/Data Sheets/Enocean PDFs/ECS300_310.pdf
If only we knew the actual size of the PowerFilm panel used in the demo, then we'd be able to directly compare the relative efficiencies of the ECS300 against the powerfilm. Even so, there's likely to be a lot of slop in these numbers, because they are each probably doing their 200 lux measurements using different light spectra (i.e. whatever shows off their product in the most favorable light, so to speak). -
Regarding capacitor selection for the SPV1050 and nRF52. The undervoltage protection for the SPV1050 is 2.2V. At the same time, nRF52 works starting from 1.8V. The maximum allowed voltage drop should be no more than:
U_drop = 2.2V - 1.8V = 0.4V
Taking in account, that the nRF52840 can draw up to 25.8mA at 1.8V when transmitting at 8dBm, it means that supercap ESR should be no more than this value:
ESR = U_drop / I = 0.4V / 25.8mA โ 15.5 ฮฉ
On the other hand, the online power profiler states that a single BLE advertisement event charge is 38.22 ยตC at 1.8V and 25.53 ยตC at 3.6V which roughly equals to max energy consumed:
E = q * V
E_3.6 = 25.53ยตC * 3.6V = 81.11 ยตJ
E_1.8 = 38.22ยตC * 1.8V = 68.8 ยตJAnd, for the worst case, assuming the energy as derived above and 0.4V as acceptable voltage drop, the minimum required capacity must be:
E = 1/2 * C * (Vh^2 - Vl^2)
C = 2 * E / (Vh^2 - Vl^2)
C = 2 * 81.11ยตJ / (2.2V^2 - 1.8V^2) = 102 ยตFOf course, it's required that the solar cell must be able to charge the supercapacitor between BLE events.
Also, I've noticed that in buck-boost mode the SPV1050 tends to charge the store and hence the battery to higher voltages. Such, the Harvester board has limited the U_eoc to 3.2V, but on the sun I can often observe it up to 3.5V. For this reason I'd recommend to slightly lower the U_eoc and ensure that the connected battery or the supercap can handle the voltage.
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@NeverDie said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
... and yet, isn't that a small battery I see on it? Maybe it's rechargeable, and cypress opted for that so as to save space as compared to a supercap? I haven't looked into it, but that's my guess.
I think I may have found the part: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/elna-america/DCK-3R3E224U-E/604-1007-ND/970168
The picture seems to match. So, not a battery after all, but rather a supercap (one with rather high ESR). Likely 220mF, or thereabouts.@NeverDie Yeah, you're very close. Cypress has mentioned it in the datasheet. The PV panel is AM-1606C and the supercap is DCK-3R3E204T614-E.
It's also interesting to see that they have installed a second pool of ceramic capacitors to workaround high ESR of the supercap.
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I'm looking now at the ADP5091 boost chip by Analog Devices. It doesn't have a buck mode, but its boost mode is maybe just a tad more compelling than the spv1050's. It cold boots at 0.38v with 16ua of current, and after cold boot completes it can run on as little as 80mv. The pin pitch on its chip is 0.5mm as compared to 0.4mm for the SPV1050. Comparing it to the SPV1050 is perhaps splitting knits, but comparing it to every other chip on the market it does seem to require the least amount of power of any chip that I'm aware of.
https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/ADP5091-5092.pdf
Analog Devices claims that its efficiency is 80%, so if running in buck mode is an option, I'm guessing that a buck converter would beat it. On the other hand, if there's enough light to provide the voltages for a buck converter to run on, then I'd wadge there's plenty of energy to be had regardless. At least, that's how I'm starting to look at it. I think the justification for a boost architecture is that it's preparation for the worst-case scenario, in the event that it ever occurs. I haven't yet decided whether it's like preparing for a once in 10,000 years flood or not. Perhaps it's just not practical. It's probably not a bad idea to have at least one to experiment with though.
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@NeverDie Cutting panels should just work. I'm unsure how do you attach wires to it though. I'll be grateful if you will share your findings.
This Cypress BLE sensor looks very sexy. It's definitely not so flexible as the Raybeacon, but it no doubt sets the tone and is ahead in both design and technology. I'm now thinking should I switch my nRF52 board from simple two-layers to high density interconnect and WLCSP - the aQFN-73 still not too easy to solder anyway, but it imposes serious space constraints.
I like the size and shape (still considering rounded square though) - it's about what I expect from a battery operated embedded development board. Also, I found the board area is enough to build a custom DIY module using 0603 components. But routing and component placement on the main board is somewhat tight. Maybe issue a "pro" version - with all features of a development board, but integration level of a BLE module? At least it will allow place the buttons symmetrically :)
@Mishka said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
@NeverDie Cutting panels should just work. I'm unsure how do you attach wires to it though. I'll be grateful if you will share your findings.
Closing the loop on your question, it looks as though they can be cut:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/0-5W-0-5V-High-Efficiency-Back-Contact-DIY-1-6-Cut-Sunpower-Solar-Cell-36pcs-lot/291858971298?hash=item43f4267aa2:g:hsAAAOSwxp9W5tui
I've read that cutting them with a laser is the recommended method. I only just came across this, and I haven't yet found a vendor selling just one solarpower solar cell lasercut into six pieces like that yet, although the above ebay auction demonstrates that you can buy them in bulk that way. -
Powerfilm makes a thin film solar cell which they say is good for energy harvesting at 200 lux and less. According to their flyer, at 200 lux it says the expected power is 220uW for the panel included in their Nordic nRF52832 solar development kit. However, at 100 lux the expected power is not 110uW (which would have been my guess), but instead only "1,430uW"! (Even though it's a USA based company, I'm assuming they're using the European convention of a comma instead of a period for decimal notation)
https://www.powerfilmsolar.com/media/cms/Indoor_Solar_Development_Kit_with_N_A90DF4062ABC1.pdf
Since they're "official" datapoints, I thought it worth reporting, not for the absolute magnitudes (which presumably should be a function of panel size) but for the relative magnitudes. I'd be curious if other types of solar cells also degrade as quickly when going from 200 lux down to 100 lux or whether some manage to do a lot better in terms of energy made available for harvesting. If not, then without resorting to larger panels it sounds as though somewhere around 100 lux or higher is the practical limit for small footprint sensors.
@NeverDie said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
somewhere around 100 lux or higher is the practical limit for small footprint sensors.
I'm realizing now that this is hogwash because today after getting my lux meter out of mothballs I'm noticing that my solar calculator works just fine down to around 15 lux, which is when its LCD starts to fade out. It suggests that powerfilm probably just isn't one of the better performing solar cells out there.
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@NeverDie said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
somewhere around 100 lux or higher is the practical limit for small footprint sensors.
I'm realizing now that this is hogwash because today after getting my lux meter out of mothballs I'm noticing that my solar calculator works just fine down to around 15 lux, which is when its LCD starts to fade out. It suggests that powerfilm probably just isn't one of the better performing solar cells out there.
@NeverDie Wow! Are you sure the lux meter is working properly? 15 lux is about as low as 25 cm from a candle fire which is awfully low.
So, since the ADP5091 is also on the list now, I think it becomes necessary to put all the mentioned power harvesters side by side so we can compare at least basic parameters. Please take a look to the Google Spreadsheet listing some of the tiny harvesters. Please note, The Analog Devices has about ten harvesters which may be described as "tiny", but so far the sheet is covering only ADP509x series. I'm going to add the LTC series later.
From brief analysis, it looks like the Startup Input Voltage and the Startup Input Power are placing the major constraint on PV panel. Of course, the panel should be also able to supply voltage required to cold-boot the harvester. Such, under the low-light conditions (50 lx to 100 lx in a dim room) power capabilities of both of my panels are simply not sufficient to bootstrap the SPV1050: the IXYS is too weak and works starting from 150 lx, and the SCNE is good for boost, but still require 150 lx to reach 2.6V at STORE (the data is for the charts I've posted earlier):
Therefore any panel which can reach required voltage and provide enough power should make the harvesting IC work. Please also note, that after cold-boot almost any harvester can work on a lower power (usually 1.5 - 3 times lower than it was required to start).
Also, in the table there is a class of super-tiny harvesters, namely the Cypress S6AE102(3)A and Ricoh R1800K. They can charge a store by harvesting source with less than 1ยตW capability. At the same time, the EM8500 looks like the most sophisticated embedded solution with lots of features. The rest of harvesters are quite nice ICs for a modular system.
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@NeverDie Wow! Are you sure the lux meter is working properly? 15 lux is about as low as 25 cm from a candle fire which is awfully low.
So, since the ADP5091 is also on the list now, I think it becomes necessary to put all the mentioned power harvesters side by side so we can compare at least basic parameters. Please take a look to the Google Spreadsheet listing some of the tiny harvesters. Please note, The Analog Devices has about ten harvesters which may be described as "tiny", but so far the sheet is covering only ADP509x series. I'm going to add the LTC series later.
From brief analysis, it looks like the Startup Input Voltage and the Startup Input Power are placing the major constraint on PV panel. Of course, the panel should be also able to supply voltage required to cold-boot the harvester. Such, under the low-light conditions (50 lx to 100 lx in a dim room) power capabilities of both of my panels are simply not sufficient to bootstrap the SPV1050: the IXYS is too weak and works starting from 150 lx, and the SCNE is good for boost, but still require 150 lx to reach 2.6V at STORE (the data is for the charts I've posted earlier):
Therefore any panel which can reach required voltage and provide enough power should make the harvesting IC work. Please also note, that after cold-boot almost any harvester can work on a lower power (usually 1.5 - 3 times lower than it was required to start).
Also, in the table there is a class of super-tiny harvesters, namely the Cypress S6AE102(3)A and Ricoh R1800K. They can charge a store by harvesting source with less than 1ยตW capability. At the same time, the EM8500 looks like the most sophisticated embedded solution with lots of features. The rest of harvesters are quite nice ICs for a modular system.
@Mishka said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
Wow! Are you sure the lux meter is working properly? 15 lux is about as low as 25 cm from a candle fire which is awfully low.
I used a cheap consumer grade lux meter to take the measurement, but it's consistent with what Dave Jones reported for the same solar calculator. He did a youtube video on it, and he showed it worked at around 20lux at a coarse level and probably a bit less.
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@NeverDie Wow! Are you sure the lux meter is working properly? 15 lux is about as low as 25 cm from a candle fire which is awfully low.
So, since the ADP5091 is also on the list now, I think it becomes necessary to put all the mentioned power harvesters side by side so we can compare at least basic parameters. Please take a look to the Google Spreadsheet listing some of the tiny harvesters. Please note, The Analog Devices has about ten harvesters which may be described as "tiny", but so far the sheet is covering only ADP509x series. I'm going to add the LTC series later.
From brief analysis, it looks like the Startup Input Voltage and the Startup Input Power are placing the major constraint on PV panel. Of course, the panel should be also able to supply voltage required to cold-boot the harvester. Such, under the low-light conditions (50 lx to 100 lx in a dim room) power capabilities of both of my panels are simply not sufficient to bootstrap the SPV1050: the IXYS is too weak and works starting from 150 lx, and the SCNE is good for boost, but still require 150 lx to reach 2.6V at STORE (the data is for the charts I've posted earlier):
Therefore any panel which can reach required voltage and provide enough power should make the harvesting IC work. Please also note, that after cold-boot almost any harvester can work on a lower power (usually 1.5 - 3 times lower than it was required to start).
Also, in the table there is a class of super-tiny harvesters, namely the Cypress S6AE102(3)A and Ricoh R1800K. They can charge a store by harvesting source with less than 1ยตW capability. At the same time, the EM8500 looks like the most sophisticated embedded solution with lots of features. The rest of harvesters are quite nice ICs for a modular system.
@Mishka This is probably worth adding to the list: https://e-peas.com/products/energy-harvesting/photovoltaic/aem10941/
If we add that, I think we have a pretty complete list for a first pass. The e-peas is pretty expensive though, so we could drop it for that reason.
Since covering the worst case seems to be a relevant concern, I think it's important to identify which one can start-up and begin harvesting at the lowest lux level.
15 lux doesn't seem all that dim to the eye. Setting aside the explanation that our eyes have great dynamic range, I still think we should be able to harvest from less than that. I mean, people are able to harvest from fairly weak radio waves, which have far less power.
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@Mishka This is probably worth adding to the list: https://e-peas.com/products/energy-harvesting/photovoltaic/aem10941/
If we add that, I think we have a pretty complete list for a first pass. The e-peas is pretty expensive though, so we could drop it for that reason.
Since covering the worst case seems to be a relevant concern, I think it's important to identify which one can start-up and begin harvesting at the lowest lux level.
15 lux doesn't seem all that dim to the eye. Setting aside the explanation that our eyes have great dynamic range, I still think we should be able to harvest from less than that. I mean, people are able to harvest from fairly weak radio waves, which have far less power.
@NeverDie Added, thanks! Quite interesting the IC implements some kind of Cuk converter. On the bad side it seems stocked nowhere, but the e-peas only.
Looking for reasons why the Cypress BLE sensor has chosen a Panasonic cell I found the catalogue which also contains number of interesting charts. Such, the chart on page 3 explains why a calculator cell is more efficient in artificial light than the IXYS thing (BTW the IXYS datasheet has it pretty flat on the range from 400 nm to 1100nm).
This all makes me think that there are basically two combos to choose from:
- an amorphous cell and 3ยตW harvester
- a monocrystalline cell and 15ยตW harvester with voltage adjusted to panel assembly
But to be honest I'm quite surprised how well performs the SCNE cell I have extracted from the noname calculator.
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@NeverDie Added, thanks! Quite interesting the IC implements some kind of Cuk converter. On the bad side it seems stocked nowhere, but the e-peas only.
Looking for reasons why the Cypress BLE sensor has chosen a Panasonic cell I found the catalogue which also contains number of interesting charts. Such, the chart on page 3 explains why a calculator cell is more efficient in artificial light than the IXYS thing (BTW the IXYS datasheet has it pretty flat on the range from 400 nm to 1100nm).
This all makes me think that there are basically two combos to choose from:
- an amorphous cell and 3ยตW harvester
- a monocrystalline cell and 15ยตW harvester with voltage adjusted to panel assembly
But to be honest I'm quite surprised how well performs the SCNE cell I have extracted from the noname calculator.
@Mishka said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
This all makes me think that there are basically two combos to choose from:
Not quite. After closer look I've found the AM-5610 outdoor panel of suitable size - only 25x20mm. The panel is capable to produce up to 18mW.
Other interesting panels are: AM-1606 as used on the Cypress BLE, 15x15mm, AM-1456 which is close to SolarBit by size, 25x10mm, and AM-1312 which is exactly of the same size the SCNE I have.
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@Mishka said in ๐ฌ The Harvester: ultimate power supply for the Raybeacon DK:
This all makes me think that there are basically two combos to choose from:
Not quite. After closer look I've found the AM-5610 outdoor panel of suitable size - only 25x20mm. The panel is capable to produce up to 18mW.
Other interesting panels are: AM-1606 as used on the Cypress BLE, 15x15mm, AM-1456 which is close to SolarBit by size, 25x10mm, and AM-1312 which is exactly of the same size the SCNE I have.
@Mishka I suppose the SC-3722-9 may be too big for your project, but it's worth mentioning because it performs pretty decently under indoor lighting, and you can extract them for cheap from $1 solar keychains, which are widely available. That's all subjective though. I'm not sure how they compare by the numbers.
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This diode is a bit expensive and too large for your project, but for experimental purposes it seems like the cat's meow as a blocking diode when collecting currents at tiny voltages: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sm74611.pdf
Just 26mv forward voltage drop at an 8a current, and just 0.3ua reverse leakage current at a voltage of 28v. Obviously, those numbers would be far less for the currents and voltages that we're dealing with. It seems to be very nearly an ideal diode, or at least the closest I've ever seen to that.
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Summarizing the work on the SPV1050 (irrelevant to other ICs mentioned in this topic) please let me publish revision 0.9 of the Harvester board. It addresses some issues found on the previous boards, and introduces number of important changes.
The most noticeable one is that the board now supports both boost and buck-boost DC-DC configurations of the SPV1050. After reviewing some tiny PV panels it was indetified that the maximum working voltage for a tiny panel is about 3V which means the boost mode is more suitable to do the job. Also, tiny high voltage panels (like some SolarBIT models) have very limited current capabilities and in low light conditions simply can't supply enough power in order to make the harvester chip work. It's also important to note that the cold-boot voltage for boost DC-DC is 0.55V which is only about 20% of maximum 3V voltage a panel can gain - please compare that with 2.6V and 4.4V respectively for some most advanced cells. Finally, if in the boost mode the SPV1050 supports TEG modules.
Therefore the BOM was adjusted to the boost configuration with the following thresholds:
Symbol Parameter Value V_uvp Battery under voltage protection threshold 2.4V V_eoc Battery end of charge voltage 3.1V V_oc Source open circuit maximum voltage 4.7V V_mp Maximum power point voltage 78% * V_oc Please note, in the boost mode the SPV1050 will effectively set V_eoc = V_in for all V_in values greater than 3.1V which may cause damage to the battery or the nRF52 SoC. To prevent the negative impact please carefully consider the source.
If the only source you have is a high voltage solar panel, it's possible to adjust the R1-R3 resistors ladder (please refer to the SPV1050 datasheet) and switch the Harvester board to buck-boost mode as follows:
Hint: If the solar panel is really big (like 2W / 12V or so) and you don't need MPPT, it's possible to close the USB Charge jumper and connect the panel to VBUS and GND solder pads in order to employ the 3.2V USB LDO.
The MPPT fixed voltage ratio is set to 78% with resistors R2=2.2M and R3=8.06M. For a TEG module with MPPT ratio at about 50% just replace both R2 and R3 with 5.2M resistors.
Other notable changes included into this release are:
- Fixed some silk layer errors
- The MIC5205-3.2 LDO got missing input filtering capacitor
- The current limiting resistor between the SPV1050 and the tantalum capacitor has been removed
- Connection to the ground plane in some isolated areas was improved
And last, but not least, I'd like to thank the MySensors forum and in particular @NeverDie for his tremendous contributions. It's pure fun to discuss tiny boards with tiny harvesters working from tiny power sources :call_me_hand:
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Summarizing the work on the SPV1050 (irrelevant to other ICs mentioned in this topic) please let me publish revision 0.9 of the Harvester board. It addresses some issues found on the previous boards, and introduces number of important changes.
The most noticeable one is that the board now supports both boost and buck-boost DC-DC configurations of the SPV1050. After reviewing some tiny PV panels it was indetified that the maximum working voltage for a tiny panel is about 3V which means the boost mode is more suitable to do the job. Also, tiny high voltage panels (like some SolarBIT models) have very limited current capabilities and in low light conditions simply can't supply enough power in order to make the harvester chip work. It's also important to note that the cold-boot voltage for boost DC-DC is 0.55V which is only about 20% of maximum 3V voltage a panel can gain - please compare that with 2.6V and 4.4V respectively for some most advanced cells. Finally, if in the boost mode the SPV1050 supports TEG modules.
Therefore the BOM was adjusted to the boost configuration with the following thresholds:
Symbol Parameter Value V_uvp Battery under voltage protection threshold 2.4V V_eoc Battery end of charge voltage 3.1V V_oc Source open circuit maximum voltage 4.7V V_mp Maximum power point voltage 78% * V_oc Please note, in the boost mode the SPV1050 will effectively set V_eoc = V_in for all V_in values greater than 3.1V which may cause damage to the battery or the nRF52 SoC. To prevent the negative impact please carefully consider the source.
If the only source you have is a high voltage solar panel, it's possible to adjust the R1-R3 resistors ladder (please refer to the SPV1050 datasheet) and switch the Harvester board to buck-boost mode as follows:
Hint: If the solar panel is really big (like 2W / 12V or so) and you don't need MPPT, it's possible to close the USB Charge jumper and connect the panel to VBUS and GND solder pads in order to employ the 3.2V USB LDO.
The MPPT fixed voltage ratio is set to 78% with resistors R2=2.2M and R3=8.06M. For a TEG module with MPPT ratio at about 50% just replace both R2 and R3 with 5.2M resistors.
Other notable changes included into this release are:
- Fixed some silk layer errors
- The MIC5205-3.2 LDO got missing input filtering capacitor
- The current limiting resistor between the SPV1050 and the tantalum capacitor has been removed
- Connection to the ground plane in some isolated areas was improved
And last, but not least, I'd like to thank the MySensors forum and in particular @NeverDie for his tremendous contributions. It's pure fun to discuss tiny boards with tiny harvesters working from tiny power sources :call_me_hand:
@Mishka Looks like a winner. :+1: Once you put it together I'll be interested to hear what the lowest light levels are that you're able to run it at and which solar panels/cells you end up liking the best.
I think there's a good chance it will outperform the eval kits from enOcean, Cypress Semiconductor, Cymbet, and others that rely on a high cold start voltage. In order for them to win they would need to harvest at a lower power than what your chip can manage but somehow also at the higher voltages and with enough power that their chips require, and I'm not sure whether or not those two conditions can be generated simultaneously by real world solar panels.
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@Mishka Looks like a winner. :+1: Once you put it together I'll be interested to hear what the lowest light levels are that you're able to run it at and which solar panels/cells you end up liking the best.
I think there's a good chance it will outperform the eval kits from enOcean, Cypress Semiconductor, Cymbet, and others that rely on a high cold start voltage. In order for them to win they would need to harvest at a lower power than what your chip can manage but somehow also at the higher voltages and with enough power that their chips require, and I'm not sure whether or not those two conditions can be generated simultaneously by real world solar panels.
@NeverDie Well, the SPV1050 has a nice set of features I need and offers impressive flexibility in a small package. However, when speaking about efficiency the AEM10941 seem outperforms it in every single bit.
The current design reached some level of stability so I think the AEM10941 is what I should try next.
