Best or any way to get battery before regulator

[Martin Tellblom]

As I understand after some failed attempt to do a soil moisture sensor with battery check included I can't use any analog pins when using this method described in Battery Powered sensors.

My sensor looks like this:

And this does it impossible to use the VCC library since I have a regulator.

Any other way to get the batterylevel in my setup?

[AWI]

@Martin-Tellblom why can't you use analog pins? You need one of these to measure. As your battery voltage is lower than the Arduino vcc you do not need a voltage divider. Just connect the battery (+) to an analog pin.

[Martin Tellblom]

If I use this code:

#if defined(__AVR_ATmega2560__)
  analogReference(INTERNAL1V1);
#else
  analogReference(INTERNAL);
#endif

And try to use the analog pins for this soil moisture sensor the values I get from the other analog pins goes all crazy with its values

[AWI]

@Martin-Tellblom don't use the internal reference, stick to the external (default)

[Martin Tellblom]

@AWI How do I do that? This is my first battery node tryout :)

[AWI]

@Martin-Tellblom Try to comment out the
//analogReference(INTERNAL1V1);

[Martin Tellblom]

@AWI So that should be enought? I'll try that

[AWI]

analogReference(DEFAULT); is the alternative for using a 5v (vcc) reference.

[Martin Tellblom]

@AWI But that is always 5V until the end of the battery since I use a step-up or am I thinking completely wrong here

[clio75]

If you are using the internal ref 1.1 you need to divide the voltage on the pin down to this level.
If you like in the example using a 1M and 470K you will have a approx 1Volt in the point.

[AWI]

@Martin-Tellblom The 5 volt is the reference... the analog pin is where you measure with respect to the reference. Try reading this article

[Martin Tellblom]

@AWI said:

e 5 volt is the refer

Once again. Big thank you @AWI . As you understand I'm new to this battery thing and it's kind of driving me crazy :)