"low-power" refers to components and circuits which are designed to have a lower power consumption than their common counterparts. This is most often a requirement because of limited available power, as in battery operated devices.
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Power Consumption of Arduino Nano ( Current Draw Low Power )
anyone got measurements of Arduino Nanos power consumption ?
It guess it should be less than e.g. of the Uno or Mega as the USB Part only get powered when connected via usb and so does the 3.3 ...
4
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3answers
165 views
ways to generate (small amounts of) electricity
I'm searching into ways of generating very small amounts of electricity, by small I mean enough to light a couple of leds, nothing more
The main idea is to have toys that my daughters (2 and 4) can ...
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1answer
46 views
Rtc on msp430 crystal 32.768kHz, low power
I need setting timer on interrupt every second. I use 32.768kHz external crystal, mcu is MSP430G2553. In addition to the need get under consumed 10μA.
I try this code but consumed was cca 80-90 μA. ...
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0answers
44 views
Wake up a node wirelessly [closed]
I have an RF UART module device which is sleeping (master device). I can wake it via a timer and force it connect to any available slave-nodes and talk via RS232. However, I am wasting battery this ...
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1answer
97 views
Ultra low power adders and multiplier
I am working on a low frequency 30 khz module that needs to have an ultra low power consumption. The problem is the research focuses on improving the performance of the adders and multiplier and ...
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1answer
61 views
Low power IR detector for microcontroller wake-up
I am working on an ultra low power infrared wake-up circuit for a microcontroller (Atmel XMEGA). I have IRDA comms working but the receiver uses too much current to keep on all the time. I need to run ...
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4answers
92 views
What happens to other component's power consumption, when uC is switched to low-power mode
Currently, I am using a uC (Atmel ATtiny85-PU20), which will eventually run battery powered, and I am trying to reduce power consumption of entire circuit to maximise time between battery changes. ...
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4answers
222 views
Protecting Microcontroller Input Pins from Soft Power Switch
I'm working on a soft power switch for a microcontroller where a momentary switch can turn the circuit on (including microcontroller), and then when the switch is pushed a second time, the ...
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1answer
63 views
Li-Po Battery Management
I am creating an open source dive computer (diydivecomputer.com) and have been looking for the simplest way of managing the battery which consists of three functions: 1) managing the charging of the ...
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1answer
83 views
voice activated circuit with static burst [closed]
I would like to build a circuit that will activate when it detects a voice and when the voice stops to make a static burst sound like a voice activated radio.
What I am trying to do is make a voice ...
3
votes
2answers
84 views
Power switch for a dive computer
I am creating an open source dive computer (www.diydivecomputer.com) and I am having a little bit of a problem trying to figure out how to power the device on and off. The problem is that the device ...
2
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2answers
149 views
How much can I safely plug into a light socket converted to a standard outlet?
I just moved my office desk from our extra bedroom on to our stairway landing. The tricky thing was that there was no wall outlet to plug anything into. However, there was a nearby light socket, ...
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3answers
295 views
Microcontroller Sleep Race Condition
Given a microcontroller that is running the following code:
...
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5answers
159 views
How to determinate a reasonable clock frequency for a MCU?
Currently my datalogger is running at 12Mhz, and sleeps 90% of the time. When it's active its mostly blocked by I/O like SD-card or UART.
I suspect the system would still work at 6 Mhz, but how do ...
5
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3answers
130 views
Powering an IC from a GPIO line
I've got a low power application which will be powered from a Li coin cell. I've achieved satisfactory seeping current with my chosen MCU.
The application ADC IC however is a different matter: 900µA ...
0
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4answers
236 views
Wake up MCU on UART RX data
I have several MCU's of which I cannot use the deep-sleep modes, because they cannot wake up on UART data coming in. Are there any components for sale which can solve this? I can imagine something ...
3
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1answer
324 views
What is the current draw of an Arduino Due board when sleeping?
I have application which requires 1 year+ operation on a small battery (2xAAA or coin cell). It will be spending 99.99% of the time sleeping only requiring an internal timer for periodic waking and ...
2
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2answers
163 views
Low power, cheap, long timeout, watchdog circuit
I need a circuit to act as a watchdog to a micro (which is not powered (instead of in a sleep mode)most of the time).
it needs to be low power (< ~4uA) and non-programmable. So no I2C RTCs or ...
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0answers
258 views
Example code for CSR1000 BLE central mode operation [closed]
I am trying to program a Cambridge Silicon Radio CSR1000 (datasheet) powered BLE module, the Rayson BTM800, to discover the peripherals around it and initiate connection. The uEnergy SDK provided by ...
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1answer
214 views
Hardware flow-control (CTS/RTS)
My MCU cannot wake up from UART data, so I wanted it to wake up from the RTS line, but Im having problems understanding the concept.
When Im sending data from my MCU to the peripheral, I see the ...
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0answers
30 views
Electrical Displacement Transducers
Please can you clarify for me what responsivity, maximum range and
linear range mean in relation to an electrical displacement transducer?
edit: I know now that responsivity is just output/input ...
6
votes
4answers
552 views
How to cut power off when a certain voltage from a sensor is reached?
I've built a simple Ni-Cd charger (basically a 0.1C current source) for some 1300mAh cells, that I want to stop when a certain voltage is reached on the cell. I tried to design the switch with an Op ...
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5answers
217 views
Does CW or SSB consume more power?
CW pumps out the full carrier but has a better SNR. On the other hand SSB suppresses the carrier, and one side-band but this suppression demands additional circuitry. There are probably additional ...
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1answer
138 views
Active 433Mhz RF tag battery life question
I am exploring the world of RTLS system and trying to produce one on my own. I chose 433Mhz frequency for its penetration capabilities and I produced a PCB mounting CC430 TI family MCU-transceiver, ...
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1answer
114 views
CON1 to USB connector cable [closed]
I have a board which has a CON1 connector being currently used for a battery. Are all CON1 ports serial? Why would a battery need a CON1 port?
My guess is, this port can be used to interface and ...
6
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1answer
268 views
Bluetooth vs Bluetooth Smart (Low Energy)
Im trying to decide between Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE. My device needs to transfer 375 bytes per second. Bluetooth LE can send packets of 20 bytes max, so this boils down to about 20 packets per ...
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1answer
252 views
Is the Cortex M0 really low-power?
I'm using the NXP LPC1100 series CPU, which is their most low-power Cortex M0 offering. However, in the datasheet it states that under the most optimal conditions (sleep-mode + all peripherals ...
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1answer
76 views
Why is it only one of four batteries (Li Ion) is drained?
I have a programmable TV remote control ( a Marantz I've had since 1999 or longer if it matters), it uses 4 AA batteries. I often find (at least when I use Li-Ion, non-rechargeables) that when the ...
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2answers
100 views
Accurate ADC sampling with in-accurate clock
Im building a datalogger with a LPC11xx as CPU. It needs to wakeup at 256hz to take ADC samples, but this CPU has very in-accurate timed wakeup from deep-sleep, causing jitter on the sampled data.
So ...
5
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5answers
1k views
simple, energy efficient circuit to make single IR LED blink
I'm using a 850nm IR LED (spec sheet), and in order to extend my battery life, I'd like to make the LED blink (UF 1.9 V, IF 100 mA).
I found a couple of links 1, 2, 3 but they either a) require two ...
2
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1answer
71 views
Buffering Micro-SD data for power saving useful?
I have a datalogger which has only 4KB of SRAM, and because of that it needs to flush its buffer to MicroSD every second. Would adding external SRAM to create a larger buffer safe any significant ...
7
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3answers
151 views
How do I find energy leaks?
I'm in a process of writing software for eZ 430 Chronos watch using TinyOS. I want it to be as low-power as it is possible.
Unfortunately, my measurements show power consumption of about 350uA @3.3V ...
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1answer
38 views
What are some good methods for adding charging control/signaling for a docking wireless system with a rechargeable battery?
I'm working on a device that will dock to charge very similarly to a cordless phone. The dock outputs 5V DC, which is already very low risk, but I would prefer to add a control pin that turns on the ...
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1answer
139 views
how to calculate thickness of copper conductor
Can you please explain how to calculate thickness of a copper conductor for the next task:
I would like to use a DC power supply instead of some batteries for my sensors. So we have V volts and AH ...
2
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2answers
107 views
How to disconnect a component with a microcontroller output?
I have a circuit that uses a PIC microcontroller and an OpenLog from Sparkfun (a microSD card logging module ). Everything is running at 3.3V.
In order to conserve power when it is not in use, I ...
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1answer
257 views
Arduino low power consumption and multiplexer
I've got a project that uses an Arduino with the LadyAda audio shield and a multiplexer to play sounds in response to button presses. I'm planning on using a MAX667 voltage regulator which has a low ...
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5answers
4k views
How can a let my atmega328 run for a year on batteries?
Scenario
I have created a nice electronic door lock for my dorm room. It is currently an Arduino Diecimila with a servo [un]locking the door. It has a numerical keypad with 3x4 buttons and 5 LED's (2 ...
2
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1answer
232 views
ARM8/ARMv4 properties for qualitative comparison between RISC, CISC, and MISC processor designs
Question:
I'm wondering if anyone knows roughly what kind of power consumption one can expect from an ARM processor having the ARM8 architecture (ARMv4 instruction set)? (Edited)
Note: I'm not ...
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1answer
97 views
Powering multiple circuit boards from one wall wart
I've got two home-build Halloween props that currently run from multiple battery packs. I want to switch this to a single wall wart. Here's what I need to power: 1 arduino, 2 Cowlacious audio ...
2
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1answer
160 views
Battery powered sensor node power down circuit
I am using the BQ24079T to control power for a wireless, battery powered sensor node. The MCU will operate in one of two modes: periodic sample mode where it takes sensor readings and then sleeps, or ...
3
votes
3answers
295 views
ultra low noise reference and supply voltage with multiple ldo's in parallel
I need a very low noise power supply and ADC reference voltage for an 24 bit ADC measurement (I need noise level less than 5 uV peak to peak on both power supply and the ADC reference voltage. Supply ...
1
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3answers
217 views
How do I reliably connect power, ground and signal to a remote device?
I am building an arduino-based multi-event (light, sound, vibration) high speed photo trigger. I'd like to house the arduino and display in one box, then be able to connect a remote sensor device to ...
0
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1answer
400 views
How much power does DDR3 RAM draw when unused?
I have a RAM-using application that
would occasionally find extra RAM helpful, and
can afford the extra hardware, but
has a tight power budget.
Thus, I would include the extra RAM only if this ...
7
votes
4answers
336 views
Do Linear regulators have a minimum current to maintain their output voltage?
When I was searching Digikey for a ~6V to 3.3V Linear regulators, there was a minimum current column in the listing results. This kind of threw me because I didn't know that there was such a thing, or ...
5
votes
1answer
356 views
Turning a microcontroller on with a flip flop
I'm working on debugging a circuit that I've built and am trying to wrap my head around an issue.
I have the following circuit (74LCV is an inverting flip flop and the NCP1400 is a boost converter):
...
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1answer
405 views
Cheap programmable GPS unit?
I'm in the middle of installing GPS tracking into my car using the following guide:
http://gizmodo.com/5691724/how-to-track-your-vehicle-on-the-cheap
Though I'd like to build something a little ...
3
votes
1answer
131 views
Can an unpowered 2.4ghz transceiver exist?
I just read an internal presentation from the company i work for announcing the release of a small consumer device with an embedded RFID tag and 2.4 GHz transceiver. The presentation made note of the ...
7
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2answers
397 views
Autonomously-powered (battery-less) wireless pushbutton
What would be a feasible approach/circuit-design to make a self-powered wireless pushbutton, assuming it is even realistic?
This is what I mean by each of the three terms:
Self-powered: Power ...
4
votes
4answers
492 views
Efficient low-power buck (step-down) regulator IC for Li-Ion - 3.3V conversion?
It's not easy for electronics novice to find good element base, so I hope this suitable question.
Requirement: Efficiently power a lean, 3.3V-based MCU design from a Li-Ion battery. "Efficient" ...
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0answers
121 views
Is there an out-of-the-box solution for measuring low resistances?
I have a microprocessor project where I need to measure resistances between .1ohm and anywhere above 10ohm and I need to do it about 1000 times per second. Guessing from the number of tutorials I've ...
