New library to read Arduino VCC supply level without resistors for battery powered sensor nodes that do not use a voltage regulator but connect directly to the batteries ;-)
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@axillent You're right, but I implemented it like the external voltage dividers I've seen in sketches.
I'll add a configurable lower bound to the interface.@Yveaux said:
@axillent You're right, but I implemented it like the external voltage dividers I've seen in sketches.
I'll add a configurable lower bound to the interface.I recommend you to read atmega328 datasheet though. You will get an original inside on all things :)
you will also be surprised that atmega328p has an internal (but very low precision) analog temperature sensorsense and drive
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@Yveaux said:
@axillent You're right, but I implemented it like the external voltage dividers I've seen in sketches.
I'll add a configurable lower bound to the interface.I recommend you to read atmega328 datasheet though. You will get an original inside on all things :)
you will also be surprised that atmega328p has an internal (but very low precision) analog temperature sensor@axillent
Off-topic: why the heck did @hek add support for this temperature sensor to mysensors 1.4 library??? IMHO It doesn't belong there at all!from my experience this temperature sensor is very useless for any sens purpose
you probably will get an acceptable result after calibration, but calibration itself will kill any benefit
it is much easier to use an external pre-calibrated sensor -
@Yveaux said:
@axillent You're right, but I implemented it like the external voltage dividers I've seen in sketches.
I'll add a configurable lower bound to the interface.I recommend you to read atmega328 datasheet though. You will get an original inside on all things :)
you will also be surprised that atmega328p has an internal (but very low precision) analog temperature sensor -
@Yveaux said:
Off-topic: why the heck did @hek add support for this temperature sensor to mysensors 1.4 library??? IMHO It doesn't belong there at all!
You're right. The temp reading will probably not be there in the final version. It's pretty useless and was added for fun when I was testing.
Don't know what happened to you post. Will check with Alex... I'm sure he didn't mean to censor anything :D
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Hi there!
Inspired by the Blog entry at http://provideyourown.com/2012/secret-arduino-voltmeter-measure-battery-voltage/ I decided to write a simple Arduino library to measure VCC level without any external components!
This library can be used to measure the VCC level from e.g. battery powered sensors that do not use a voltage regulator but are powered directly from the batteries and send the battery level to the gateway.The trick is to use the AVR's internal 1.1V reference to measure AVcc. This does not require an external voltage divider.
The Vcc component can report the VCC level either in volts, or in percentage. Reporting in percentage is a nice way to report the battery level in MySensors!
For example:#include <Vcc.h> const float VccExpected = 3.0; const float VccCorrection = 2.860/2.92; // Measured Vcc by multimeter divided by reported Vcc Vcc vcc(VccCorrection); static int oldBatteryPcnt = 0; void loop() { int batteryPcnt = (int)vcc.Read_Perc(VccExpected); if (oldBatteryPcnt != batteryPcnt) { gw.sendBatteryLevel(batteryPcnt); oldBatteryPcnt = batteryPcnt; } }Deviations can easily be corrected for by running one of the example sketches and at the same time measure VCC with a multimeter.
The correction factor should be entered as (VCC multimeter/VCC reported) in the constructor of the Vcc component (the VccCorrection parameter in the example above).
See the example sketches and code for more info.The library can be found at: https://github.com/Yveaux/arduino_vcc
Or download as ZIP: https://github.com/Yveaux/arduino_vcc/archive/master.zipHave fun!
I think the big question beside all methods, is none take in account the non linear discharge function..
I mean, considering a Lipo between 4.2V and 3.2V, it's not with 20% at 3.4V (but with 1-1.5% instead).
For a correct percentage value, we have to interpolate the discharge function of a battery.
Another alternative is to measure current but we have to know the initial battery charge (mAh).
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@axillent Did you just edit my post???
I didn't type that and most part of my reply got deleted. ….
Is this forum getting censored? -
I think the big question beside all methods, is none take in account the non linear discharge function..
I mean, considering a Lipo between 4.2V and 3.2V, it's not with 20% at 3.4V (but with 1-1.5% instead).
For a correct percentage value, we have to interpolate the discharge function of a battery.
Another alternative is to measure current but we have to know the initial battery charge (mAh).
@BSoft Aargh! Can we just stick to the thread?
I think measuring VCC in this way is a neat and simple method working IMHO just as fine as an external voltage divider with some added advantages.
Of course the discharge curve is non-linear and you can indeed model it and compensate for it in software, but that's not the (initial) scope of the library I wanted to present here.
I just wanted to create a re-usable library for it and think it can be a nice addition to MySensors sensor nodes.
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@axillent You're right, but I implemented it like the external voltage dividers I've seen in sketches.
I'll add a configurable lower bound to the interface. -
I don't see how this technique saves any resistors or battery drain. I see there being two different measurements - input to a voltage regulator and input VCC to the uC, which are measured differently.
By "this technique" I mean using VCC as the analog reference (as usual) and reading the internal 1.1V internal source. That gives you 1.1v as a fraction of VCC, so you can easily calculate VCC..
The two measurements:
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You want to measure regulator INPUT voltage. You typically use a voltage divider to reduce the regulator INPUT voltage to less than VCC, which is used as the ADC reference. The technique describe here cannot be used for that measurement, so it doesn't save resistors or battery drain.
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You want to measure regulator OUTPUT voltage - or raw voltage if there is no regulator - as applied to the uC for VCC power. The technique described is the way to go, and a voltage divider is inappropriate.
If you used a voltage divider on VCC (case 2) and measured it against the normal VCC reference, all you'd get is a fixed value determined by the resistors, not reflecting VCC.
Summary: if (1) you want to measure regulator input, use a voltage divider, but if (2) you want to measure VCC then use this (well known) technique. Neither approach substitutes for the other. And you can use both, if you want both measurements (eg: if you are concerned about regulator drop-out).
Side note. There are yet other approaches. You could use the 1.1v source as REFERENCE for the ADC instead of VCC, and on the ADC input use a voltage divider from VCC or from regulator input, with a large enough ratio to bring the measured voltage down to less than 1.1v. If you had a 5v processor fed via regulator from a 7.2v source, you could measure the former with a 4:1 resistor ratio and the latter with an 6:1 or greater ratio. This is not commonly done.
If you DO use a voltage divider for measuring voltage (when appropriate), you can reduce the current wasted by using large resistors in the hundreds of Kohm range, AND putting a cap across the lower resistor. You need the cap to reduce the effective impedance into the ADC. If you just use large resistors, the internal capacitance of the ADC circuitry will be charged too slowly during measurement.
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@axillent
Off-topic: why the heck did @hek add support for this temperature sensor to mysensors 1.4 library??? IMHO It doesn't belong there at all!from my experience this temperature sensor is very useless for any sens purpose
you probably will get an acceptable result after calibration, but calibration itself will kill any benefit
it is much easier to use an external pre-calibrated sensor@Yveaux said:
Off-topic: why the heck did @hek add support for this temperature sensor to mysensors 1.4 library??? IMHO It doesn't belong there at all!
I think the internal ATMega temperature can be useful in some circumstances.
Obviously if your goal is to measure weather, there are much better external sensors. But if your sensor is primarily detecting motion or open doors or controlling relays whatever, you may not always have an external temperature sensor included - but you always have a internal one, for free - albeit low accuracy.
Or if you do have an external temperature sensor, the internal temp could be used as a sanity check - if in your physical setup the processor should be close to the same temperature as the external sensor, but the two are way off, something needs to be checked. A bit of monitoring both could tell you the normal range of divergence. Again, this is free - no extra board space or cost.
Another use case is processor monitoring, The internal sensor is actually better at telling you the die temperature, if there's any chance of it overheating (whether or not there is an external sensor), If the board is sealed, just how hot does it get inside the box? If you are putting out a lot of current on a lot of outputs, is the processor heating up? (For weather you'd have the external sensor outside the box and wouldn't know the inside temp).
Yeah, it can be optional, but but the internal temperature is not worthless.
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I don't see how this technique saves any resistors or battery drain. I see there being two different measurements - input to a voltage regulator and input VCC to the uC, which are measured differently.
By "this technique" I mean using VCC as the analog reference (as usual) and reading the internal 1.1V internal source. That gives you 1.1v as a fraction of VCC, so you can easily calculate VCC..
The two measurements:
-
You want to measure regulator INPUT voltage. You typically use a voltage divider to reduce the regulator INPUT voltage to less than VCC, which is used as the ADC reference. The technique describe here cannot be used for that measurement, so it doesn't save resistors or battery drain.
-
You want to measure regulator OUTPUT voltage - or raw voltage if there is no regulator - as applied to the uC for VCC power. The technique described is the way to go, and a voltage divider is inappropriate.
If you used a voltage divider on VCC (case 2) and measured it against the normal VCC reference, all you'd get is a fixed value determined by the resistors, not reflecting VCC.
Summary: if (1) you want to measure regulator input, use a voltage divider, but if (2) you want to measure VCC then use this (well known) technique. Neither approach substitutes for the other. And you can use both, if you want both measurements (eg: if you are concerned about regulator drop-out).
Side note. There are yet other approaches. You could use the 1.1v source as REFERENCE for the ADC instead of VCC, and on the ADC input use a voltage divider from VCC or from regulator input, with a large enough ratio to bring the measured voltage down to less than 1.1v. If you had a 5v processor fed via regulator from a 7.2v source, you could measure the former with a 4:1 resistor ratio and the latter with an 6:1 or greater ratio. This is not commonly done.
If you DO use a voltage divider for measuring voltage (when appropriate), you can reduce the current wasted by using large resistors in the hundreds of Kohm range, AND putting a cap across the lower resistor. You need the cap to reduce the effective impedance into the ADC. If you just use large resistors, the internal capacitance of the ADC circuitry will be charged too slowly during measurement.
@Zeph Your statement that there are two cases to be considered is right.
A small ceramic bypass cap (say 0.1 uF) is also important on the Voltage dividers to minimise ADC measurement errors due to any noise on these high impedance nodes. Cheap electrolytics are not applicable.
Also need to watch the settling time when switching the multiplexor - need at least 5 msec (or more; depends on size of cap connected to Vref pin):
http://capnbry.net/blog/?p=167
and see the heading "Changing reference voltage" here:
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@Yveaux said:
Off-topic: why the heck did @hek add support for this temperature sensor to mysensors 1.4 library??? IMHO It doesn't belong there at all!
I think the internal ATMega temperature can be useful in some circumstances.
Obviously if your goal is to measure weather, there are much better external sensors. But if your sensor is primarily detecting motion or open doors or controlling relays whatever, you may not always have an external temperature sensor included - but you always have a internal one, for free - albeit low accuracy.
Or if you do have an external temperature sensor, the internal temp could be used as a sanity check - if in your physical setup the processor should be close to the same temperature as the external sensor, but the two are way off, something needs to be checked. A bit of monitoring both could tell you the normal range of divergence. Again, this is free - no extra board space or cost.
Another use case is processor monitoring, The internal sensor is actually better at telling you the die temperature, if there's any chance of it overheating (whether or not there is an external sensor), If the board is sealed, just how hot does it get inside the box? If you are putting out a lot of current on a lot of outputs, is the processor heating up? (For weather you'd have the external sensor outside the box and wouldn't know the inside temp).
Yeah, it can be optional, but but the internal temperature is not worthless.
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I don't see how this technique saves any resistors or battery drain. I see there being two different measurements - input to a voltage regulator and input VCC to the uC, which are measured differently.
By "this technique" I mean using VCC as the analog reference (as usual) and reading the internal 1.1V internal source. That gives you 1.1v as a fraction of VCC, so you can easily calculate VCC..
The two measurements:
-
You want to measure regulator INPUT voltage. You typically use a voltage divider to reduce the regulator INPUT voltage to less than VCC, which is used as the ADC reference. The technique describe here cannot be used for that measurement, so it doesn't save resistors or battery drain.
-
You want to measure regulator OUTPUT voltage - or raw voltage if there is no regulator - as applied to the uC for VCC power. The technique described is the way to go, and a voltage divider is inappropriate.
If you used a voltage divider on VCC (case 2) and measured it against the normal VCC reference, all you'd get is a fixed value determined by the resistors, not reflecting VCC.
Summary: if (1) you want to measure regulator input, use a voltage divider, but if (2) you want to measure VCC then use this (well known) technique. Neither approach substitutes for the other. And you can use both, if you want both measurements (eg: if you are concerned about regulator drop-out).
Side note. There are yet other approaches. You could use the 1.1v source as REFERENCE for the ADC instead of VCC, and on the ADC input use a voltage divider from VCC or from regulator input, with a large enough ratio to bring the measured voltage down to less than 1.1v. If you had a 5v processor fed via regulator from a 7.2v source, you could measure the former with a 4:1 resistor ratio and the latter with an 6:1 or greater ratio. This is not commonly done.
If you DO use a voltage divider for measuring voltage (when appropriate), you can reduce the current wasted by using large resistors in the hundreds of Kohm range, AND putting a cap across the lower resistor. You need the cap to reduce the effective impedance into the ADC. If you just use large resistors, the internal capacitance of the ADC circuitry will be charged too slowly during measurement.
@Zeph said:
- You want to measure regulator OUTPUT voltage - or raw voltage if there is no regulator - as applied to the uC for VCC power. The technique described is the way to go, and a voltage divider is inappropriate.
This is exactly the use-case where I wrote the library for, or when you want to add supply level measurement to a battery powered sensor node which doesn't have a voltage divider circuit.
Possibly I didn't make that clear in the subject.
Update changed topic subject
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@Yveaux said:
Off-topic: why the heck did @hek add support for this temperature sensor to mysensors 1.4 library??? IMHO It doesn't belong there at all!
I think the internal ATMega temperature can be useful in some circumstances.
Obviously if your goal is to measure weather, there are much better external sensors. But if your sensor is primarily detecting motion or open doors or controlling relays whatever, you may not always have an external temperature sensor included - but you always have a internal one, for free - albeit low accuracy.
Or if you do have an external temperature sensor, the internal temp could be used as a sanity check - if in your physical setup the processor should be close to the same temperature as the external sensor, but the two are way off, something needs to be checked. A bit of monitoring both could tell you the normal range of divergence. Again, this is free - no extra board space or cost.
Another use case is processor monitoring, The internal sensor is actually better at telling you the die temperature, if there's any chance of it overheating (whether or not there is an external sensor), If the board is sealed, just how hot does it get inside the box? If you are putting out a lot of current on a lot of outputs, is the processor heating up? (For weather you'd have the external sensor outside the box and wouldn't know the inside temp).
Yeah, it can be optional, but but the internal temperature is not worthless.
@Zeph said:
I think the internal ATMega temperature can be useful in some circumstances.
Again, I did not want to question the (accuracy of the) internal temperature sensor, but had my questions about the location of the sensor readout code.
MySensors is a wireless networking library, which has in its basic functioning nothing to do with temperature, or any othe measurements.It should deliver the messages from A to B and back. Nothing more.
When it makes sense to use the internal temperature sensor in your sensor node, please do, but put the code in a separate library please! (I know at least @hek understood the point of my remark ;-) )
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@Zeph said:
- You want to measure regulator OUTPUT voltage - or raw voltage if there is no regulator - as applied to the uC for VCC power. The technique described is the way to go, and a voltage divider is inappropriate.
This is exactly the use-case where I wrote the library for, or when you want to add supply level measurement to a battery powered sensor node which doesn't have a voltage divider circuit.
Possibly I didn't make that clear in the subject.
Update changed topic subject
@Yveaux
OK, I understand your purpose now. I was thrown off by the comparison to using a voltage divider, which seemed to suggest this approach eliminated the need for a voltage divider and the current it costs. I don't see this technique as having an advantage over the voltage divider technique, but rather that it is used for a different measurement.Now that everybody is clear on that - thanks for the contribution!
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@Yveaux
OK, I understand your purpose now. I was thrown off by the comparison to using a voltage divider, which seemed to suggest this approach eliminated the need for a voltage divider and the current it costs. I don't see this technique as having an advantage over the voltage divider technique, but rather that it is used for a different measurement.Now that everybody is clear on that - thanks for the contribution!
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@Zeph said:
I think the internal ATMega temperature can be useful in some circumstances.
Again, I did not want to question the (accuracy of the) internal temperature sensor, but had my questions about the location of the sensor readout code.
MySensors is a wireless networking library, which has in its basic functioning nothing to do with temperature, or any othe measurements.It should deliver the messages from A to B and back. Nothing more.
When it makes sense to use the internal temperature sensor in your sensor node, please do, but put the code in a separate library please! (I know at least @hek understood the point of my remark ;-) )
, but had my questions about the location of the sensor readout code.
When it makes sense to use the internal temperature sensor in your sensor node, please do, but put the code in a separate library please! (I know at least @hek understood the point of my remark ;-) )
OK, thanks for making that very clear and now that I understand, I agree!
In terms of whether there can be some value to even the uncalibrated internal temp, my point was that there are some reasonable use cases for it. In terms of where to put the code in those cases, yes it makes sense to optionally make this one of the reported values in a sensor node, rather than wiring it into the transport library.
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If I understand this method correctly, you want to read the VCC of the MCU? But this does not have to be the actual battery voltage. Most battery powered designs I have seen here uses a step-up converter to drain the battery as much as possible while maintaining a regulated voltage supply to the MCU. So even if battery voltage drops, MCU gets it's nominal voltage, and then this algorithm would still (incorrectly) report 100% even though the actual battery voltage is dropping significantly.
I could have misinterpreted things though, so I would appreciate correction :)
I would rather consider using the original resistor divider proposal combined with a FET or similar to be able to control when I want to do the measurement. The original simpler design I find a bit too wasteful as it constantly drains the battery.
Or perhaps there are battery management circuits that can do both step-up regulation combined with input sensing that can interface with the MCU to be able to get some real meaty metrics of the battery? Might be expensive, but cool :)
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