Hello all,
I developed a project to remotely control a little yatch.
The project is made up by a Netduino, a cellular shield (sparkfun), an LCD key pad shield and a real time clock.
The target is to send a short message when an event occurs (e.g. water near the engine!).
All is working fine, but I need to power the project with a battery.
I tried to use a 9 volts battery, but the project run out of battery in 7 hours with the LCD backlight switched off. The project does not use infinite while loop (it uses interrupt).
The alternative to the 9 volts battery is to use the yatch battery (the same as a 12 volts car battery), but I would not run out of that battery and I don't know if 12 volts are supported for all the shields.
Do you have any suggestions to minimize power consumption? What is the best way to power this kind of project?
Bye!
Stefano.
Power consumption problem
Started by StefanoZ, Feb 28 2011 10:14 PM
5 replies to this topic
#2
Joe Griffith
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Posted 28 February 2011 - 10:32 PM
Just out of curiosity, what is a "little yatch" exactly?
#3
KodeDaemon
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Posted 28 February 2011 - 11:08 PM
He means yacht.
Just out of curiosity, what is a "little yatch" exactly?
#4
KodeDaemon
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Posted 28 February 2011 - 11:14 PM
Chances are you are using a large amount of current and that's why your batteries are running out fast. A 9v battery can run 500mA for roughly an hour. I would figure out how much current you are using and look for a battery that can supply that for the amount of time you are expecting it to run for.
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#5
StefanoZ
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Posted 01 March 2011 - 07:38 AM
He means yacht.
Yes, sorry for the mistake!
#6
StefanoZ
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Posted 01 March 2011 - 07:48 AM
Chances are you are using a large amount of current and that's why your batteries are running out fast. A 9v battery can run 500mA for roughly an hour. I would figure out how much current you are using and look for a battery that can supply that for the amount of time you are expecting it to run for.
It seems the unit consumes 90 mA with the LCD background light switched off. Uhm, it seems a high consumption. That's why the battery is running out fast. Do you think is it possible to connect the unit directly to the 12 volts battery?
I think then I should consider to use a solar power to charge the 12 volts battery...
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