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Battery power to run stand-alone


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#1 volleynerd

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Posted 01 July 2015 - 09:26 PM

I have a rudimentary version of my application running on the Netduino 3 WiFi board.  It's powered via USB connection to the PC where I'm doing the development.

 

Now I want to mount this board in a place nowhere near a PC, so no USB connection.

 

Any ideas or suggestions on what battery setup will work with this board?  

How long will a battery be able to run the board?  (I'm sure the answer to that is - depends on the battery)

 

Thanks!  Looking forward to running this thing stand-alone.

 

 



#2 Chris Walker

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Posted 01 July 2015 - 10:17 PM

Hi Volleynerd,

I would recommend supplying battery power via the USB power barrel (although this will give you a bit of voltage drop-out...you can use a 6 pack of AAs of a 9V and they should continue providing power even when mostly-drained).

While CC3100 does have some fancy sleep mode options, the current integration puts the CC3100 in always-on mode. So you're probably going to be using up to a few hundred mA of power.

I would start with a 6 pack of AAs plugged into VIN and see how long that lasts you...and go from there.

If there is a lot of interest in battery-powered Wi-Fi operations, we could investigate integration of PowerState with CC3100 to enable longer battery runtime (by putting things into sleep mode when your threads were sleeping and network activity was low). You'd have above-average latency over Wi-Fi, but it could theoretically extend battery life significantly.

Chris

#3 volleynerd

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Posted 08 July 2015 - 09:55 PM

Thanks for the tips.  Since I'm a hardware newb, I think I'll start with the USB barrel.  I have various DC USB chargers for phones, etc. that I want to try first, but wanting to make sure the amperage is right.  On the spec sheet, I see input 7.5 - 9.0 VDC or USB powered, but doesn't say what amperage is good for input.  I have a 5V 1.1A USB plug, will that work?  If that works, then I'll go from there with a USB backup battery or some such and see how long that will last.  

 

I'm betting the answer is "try it" ... I just dont want to "fry it".  :)

 

Your idea above of hooking up some AAs directly to VIN - I'll need to research more and figure out how one would pull that off.  

 

Any further power help for the newbie is appreciated...



#4 EddieGarmon

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Posted 09 July 2015 - 02:41 AM

Amperage rating of the DC source will need to be at or above the total needs of your system, so yes, unfortunately, it does depend.



#5 KiwiDev

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Posted 10 July 2015 - 02:39 AM

Hi Volleynerd

 

I use battery/solar power some of my *duino projects.

 

The simplest/easiest/most robust way I have found to do this is use a shield like this

 

http://www.seeedstud...v22-p-2391.html

 

plus a suitably sized battery and power source like a solar panel.

 

The size of the battery etc. depends a lot on the kit you are using so some experimentation will most probably be necessary...

 

For example a much smaller hw setup would be required for a Netduino + nRF24L01 device that wakes up every 30mins and sends <32 bytes vs.; a Netduino 3 Wifi device with lots of sensors + actuators and connectivity using a 2.5G GPRS shield 

 

I also use one of those shields as a UPS for a N3 Wifi device by plugging in a USB wall-wart or similar.

 

 

Bryn

@KiwiBryn

blow.devmobile.co.nz






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