I see there are a bunch of boards out there, but here is what I am looking to do with my Arduino board, and I hope we can narrow some options down.
1.) I will be operating the board in low temperatures - Arctic cold.
2.) I need the board to be battery operated. I know the boards need a minimum power, but keep in mind since I am operating in cold temperatures, I need to realize that batteries in cold temps are going to be reduced in capacity (by 50%), so I need to leave it operating for 2-3 days at a minimum in cold temperatures.
3.) I will need GPS, an RS-232 port to read EM wave data from a radar, and slots for an azimuth reading for a gyro, angle readings from another encoder (that I already have - 2 wire lead).
4.) I'm also going to need an SD-card capability to store the data I receive.
5.) More of a question - I see ethernet boards. Are there any Ethernet/Bluetooth/Wifi combo boards available?
It's a start, so hopefully we can come to something.
If you are planning to operate below 0C, then you will likely have problems with commercial parts/boards, where the parts are only rated from oC to +70C. Suggest you look at data sheets on as many parts as you can identify.
Atmega328P is -40C to +85C, while the NCP1117 regulator is only rated down to 0C. If you are running at low current draw from batteries, it may not heat up while regulating. Maybe use a board that can run from batteries directly instead as one option.
May need to mount the parts in an insulated box, and may even need to provide a small heat source.
Thanks for the reply. No offense, I'm a bit confused. Say temperatures weren't an issue (or we had them properly insulated where temperatures don't matter), then can the above configuration happen?
From what I read you can put a lot of "shields" on the Arduino boards. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Since there are many Arduino main boards (and I don't believe any are customizable by the factory from what I gather), which one is recommended to enable all of these inputs?