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New ultra-low power Arduino board with built-in RF (RFM69)

musskopf

Hi Everyone,

 

for some time now I've been designing and testing a new Dev board, which I've created to fulfill some requirements I normally have for our projects. I basically need good Wireless communication and, at the same time, be able to run my Arduino for some long periods on standard battery.

 

For that reason we've created the "Whisper Node", which I'm glad to announce it was successfully founded via Kickstarter and it's now a real product available to everyone. Additional details can be found on the following link: https://wisen.com.au/store/products/whisper-node-avr/

 

image

 

Please check it out, share with your friends and support this project if you believe it's interesting.

 

Update May/2017: After the success of the Whisper Node RFM69 version (Semtech SX1231), we're now producing the LoRa version, featuring an even more smart power management and using the RFM95 (Semtech SX1276) radio.

 

Thank you all!

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  • Hi!

     

    This sounds great!

     

    I wonder one thing: can you manage to sleep the arduino and wake it up by an incoming package of the RFM69? I imagine this would increase the battery life even more, no?

     

    Thanks,

    Francis

  • in reply to francisaugusto

    Using the various sleep modes is probably one  way of increasing the life of your batteries. If the chip supports an interrupt (any line will do that changes state when something of interest occurs will do)

     

    but after reading a bit about the board

     

    it is using a 16Mhz crystal, this means it could be unreliable at 3V3 see the chart showing safe operating speed vs supply, it may work on some boards but not others

    image

     

    Other ways of significantly reducing power is to slow down the CPU, how fast do you really need it to go ?, this of course is application dependent. but will also allow you to reduce the supply voltage. you need to consider the lowest voltage of the other parts though.

     

    Don't listen to the radio the whole time, the datasheet indicates it consumes 16mA in listen mode... thats a lot for a AA battery. but of course, if you're not listening then you can't be woken up by the radio so you will need to use a watch dog timer

    Transmit power could be limited based on the range you need. min is also 16mA but can extend to over 130mA...

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  • in reply to francisaugusto

    Using the various sleep modes is probably one  way of increasing the life of your batteries. If the chip supports an interrupt (any line will do that changes state when something of interest occurs will do)

     

    but after reading a bit about the board

     

    it is using a 16Mhz crystal, this means it could be unreliable at 3V3 see the chart showing safe operating speed vs supply, it may work on some boards but not others

    image

     

    Other ways of significantly reducing power is to slow down the CPU, how fast do you really need it to go ?, this of course is application dependent. but will also allow you to reduce the supply voltage. you need to consider the lowest voltage of the other parts though.

     

    Don't listen to the radio the whole time, the datasheet indicates it consumes 16mA in listen mode... thats a lot for a AA battery. but of course, if you're not listening then you can't be woken up by the radio so you will need to use a watch dog timer

    Transmit power could be limited based on the range you need. min is also 16mA but can extend to over 130mA...

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