Power conservation with battery powered sensors

[funky81]

@lininger Anyway, have anyone realize the consumption every deek-robot pro mini (before cutting the power regulator and led) are not the same?

My first board takes 3.2mA while the other takes 2.4mA. All using the same battery, nrf24l01+ radio also sketch. And until now, I don't know where's the differences...

[Sidey]

@funky81

Hi, the bootload is not really my problem. Connection via Programmer is also not possible.

I've checkd the connections again and again.
Not i think, i have another revision from the deek robot. I really have two diffent revisions. Layout seems same but they are not from the same production.

But I've figured out that the lines in the picture at the first post are a little bit differnt as with my pro mini.

I've made a cut directly at the regulator. And that it's the problem. The connection to vcc is exactly at this position. I've checked this with a jumper wire. Bringing back the connection let the uc run.

I've attatched a photo. Red is the cut, green is the vcc connection.

Sidey

[sundberg84]

I have the same problems - anyone solved it?

Deek robot dies when you try to remove the voltage regulator.
Also its different consumption on each robot.

Br

[Sweebee]

I have some and all I did was removing the regulator (desoldering) and it works fine. So no cutting wires. If you want to program it make sure you have a vcc connected to the side pins since the vcc on the ftdi header doesn't work anymore.

[sundberg84]

@Sweebee Hi - thank you for this!

I can also comfirm, desoldering the voltage regulator and not using the FTDI VCC does work.
The deek-robot i tried to cut the trace shown in Battery page killed it so i had to resolder it.

@hek maybe we should mention this on the battery page?
I think a battery WIKI would be awsome... :)

[hek]

There are just too many clones out there...

But I've been thinking of setting up a wiki for some time. The problem is to find out a good integration with the forum (same user base and and perhaps use the forum commenting on wiki articles). An open blogging platform for the community members to show off their projects/research might be a better choice.

[bjacobse]

My Deek-robot Arduino Pro Mini board.
Only cut the LED PCB track
Lift the Voltage regulator since the PCB track connected to the Voltage reg is also used further, so do NOT cut the track

[rmtucker]

Well i just scrapped my first Mini pro by trying to remove the pesky Led.
There has to be a better alternative?

[sundberg84]

I always desolder it completley, easiest way and you dont have to cut.
I also desolders the voltage regulator in my battery operations.
Works great on a pro mini (deek robot)

[bjacobse]

@sundberg84
I also on my last work removed the LG33, it's faster :-)
Well this most likely have been provided as info, but else it's here:
Remember to burn new OPTIBOOT 8MHz into the Arduino Pro Mini
and then I also use avrdude with a usbtinyISP to set the fuse to not check battery voltage monitoring, this is done after I have flashed this with Arduino IDE

avrdude -c usbtiny -p m328p -U efuse:w:0x07:m```