Hands-on learning(Help a newbie)

Question

As mentioned, I'm completely a newbie to this field except for maybe blinking LEDs and stuff. This project I wish to do is not a school assignment. It is just a learning project I wish to do. I have an idea in mind and would like your help to know whether it is feasible and if yes, how do i go about it.

Project Aim: To create a system that turns off current to your mobile battery(Android {android.os.BatteryManager} ) if it reads a certain battery level. Any variations of this would be fine too. Like start charging if battery level < 20%.

Any help would be much appreciated.Links to resources.Direct help pertaining to project as in components required, prerequisite knowledge required, expected challenges. Anything basically.

I'm new to this community as well. Hope to make some friends along the way. Thank you.

--Hasmit.

m.ratcliffe · Answer

Most smart phones already stop charging when full, turning the mains off will offer very little savings [maybe even less than the extra power consumption of the arduino watcher] and you will probably be playing with mains electricity. If it is a cool first learning project you want to work on I would advice something a bit more fun and low voltage that also lets you mess around with the code to see changes. For example something with feedback loops that you can change the control strategy and see the real world effect.

balearicdynamics · Answer

Hello Hasmit, considering that you have few knowledge in electronics etc, I suggest two ways: 1) If you have a small budget, it is the worth to invest in a Raspberry PI 2 and a small bluetooth USB key (cheap ones works perfectly for about 5$) 2) If you have less budget, I suggest to adopt an Arduino board. Then take in account the following two ways implies two slight different approaches, so it also depends on what is your preferred orientation (i.e. from where you prefer to start studying). Common to any choice I suppose you have considered that a part of Android software should be developed. In the case 1) you can be more software-like, involving hardware and Linux on a very good, fast and reliable platform. You can work with Python on the Raspberry PI and few linux settings we can help without difficulties. In the case 2) you should consider more hardware and a reduced software environment as with the Arduino or - better - chipkit micro controllers you have not a real operating system. This implies limitations and some more effort to reach the same results. Anyway considering all the aspect of the project, I think at the end of te work your budget is almost the same, and supposing that you already have the Android device, take in account to invest at least 60$. The more is your budget, better and sophisticated your controller can be. But the mentioned expenses is the very minimal cost you should provide. Enrico