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555 Timer Madness
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555 Timer Madness
Forum Stayin Alive with the 555
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Related

Stayin Alive with the 555

scottiebabe
scottiebabe over 2 years ago

Many individuals have created a version of this circuit before. So, I take no credit.

Most USB power banks have an auto shutoff feature that is triggered when the output current drops below a threshold value. I am guessing whatever value that is, will vary greatly from unit to unit so you may need to adjust the load resistors.

image

This circuit kept my dollar store power bank from going into auto shutdown.

The oscillation frequency was approximately 1/7 Hz.

So every 7 seconds a ~100mA load is applied for ~100 ms.

image

The advantage of a pulse load circuit like this is that the average load current can be kept low, instead of say a static 100 mA load on your power bank.

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  • scottiebabe
    scottiebabe over 2 years ago +5
    Its the circuit has kept a small amber LED running at 2 mA for some time now!
  • javagoza
    javagoza over 2 years ago in reply to scottiebabe +4
    Two more days adding hardware and you already have a monster for the Halloween competition
  • Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps over 2 years ago in reply to javagoza +4
    The LED is pumpkin-coloured
  • scottiebabe
    0 scottiebabe over 2 years ago

    Here is the load current of the 555 load pulser:

    image

    I used 2 10uF MLCC capacitors as the timing capacitor, which have a poor tolerance and strong voltage coefficient. So, the actual timing of the circuit is pretty loosely specified. But so are the specs needed to keep the power bank awake...

    The Vol of the bipolar 555 is approximately 2V:

    image

    So If I really wanted a 100 mA load pulse I should use a 30 Ohm load resistor. Or perhaps 50 ohm resistor in parallel with a 100 ohm resistor would be close enough...

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  • Jan Cumps
    0 Jan Cumps over 2 years ago in reply to scottiebabe

    You can use the integrate math function of your scope to calculate the total current consumed by the pulses over a time period.

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  • scottiebabe
    0 scottiebabe over 2 years ago

    Its the circuit has kept a small amber LED running at 2 mA for some time now!

    image

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  • scottiebabe
    0 scottiebabe over 2 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

    Yes! This is great advice. Perhaps I will add another plot. Although the quiescent current of the bipolar 555 is nothing to get excited about. If only I had some CMOS 555s.... 

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  • Jan Cumps
    0 Jan Cumps over 2 years ago in reply to scottiebabe

    For the Keithley DMM6500, I've written a custom App (what a time to be alive. Lab instruments support Apps) that collects the AmpHours used by an application over time. If the supply voltage is a given constant, it can also calculate the WattHours.

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  • javagoza
    0 javagoza over 2 years ago in reply to scottiebabe

    Two more days adding hardware and you already have a monster for the Halloween competition Ghost

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  • scottiebabe
    0 scottiebabe over 2 years ago in reply to Jan Cumps

    That's very cool! That keithley has much better precision/accuracy and dynamic range than a DS1054!

    To make measurements like that I have to measure the idle/sleep current separately and then stitch everything together in Matlab...

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  • scottiebabe
    0 scottiebabe over 2 years ago in reply to javagoza

    LOL it does look a lot like a dead spider Spider. It is also a power parasite, that keeps saying Boo! every 10s to the power bank.

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  • Jan Cumps
    0 Jan Cumps over 2 years ago in reply to javagoza

    The LED is pumpkin-coloured

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  • scottiebabe
    0 scottiebabe over 2 years ago

    The control IC in my USB power bank is a TP4333:

    image

    On my powerbank the SWT pin left NC (there is no button or flashlight). 

    Unfortunately there are no detailed specifications on the auto shutdown feature:

      image

    https://www.skytech.ir/DownLoad/File/1167_ETP4333.pdf 

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