I have searched, and there is tons of conflicting information.
Here's my goal: power the arduino uno + gsm shield for about a month, at minimum on it's own.
I am reading through the battery and power consumption optimizations, but that's a lot of code engineering that I will spend time on, and will look into later.
Here's what I am asking: what battery options do I have with the Uno and gsm shield?
I currently have a USB battery pack plugged into the USB of the UNO, which is powering the UNO.
I do not have a solution for the GSM shield. The GSM shield requires more power than just the USB input.
Currently, I have a 9v battery plugged into the dc power jack, plus the USB battery power to give power to the UNO and GSM together. I don't expect this to last more than a few hours.
What are my options for the additional power for the GSM? All the lithium solutions I am looking at require more boards or converters. Is that my only route? How can I power the GSM shield and UNO with one set of lithium batteries?
Essentially I have a device that sends me an alert anytime someone opens the pantry.
I want the batteries to last for a month.
In the image, you can see 2 power sources. The first is a USB pack, that powers the Arduino. The second, is a 9v battery, which powers the GSM modem.
The GSM modem is taking up a LOT of power and the 9v battery sucks.
Can I power both of these by a lithium battery that is plug and play? I don't want to have to buy another board - for example I've seen power boards that I have to configure.
What are my options to get this to last a month without doing tons of code optimizations?
What can I replace the 9v battery with, to power the GSM?
The GSM shield can be turned on and off by using the appropriate pins and the Uno, so you can save a lot of power there.
Typically the GSM peaks at 2 amps when sending out, so a 1000 or 2200uf capacitor across its power rail will assist with that peak from the batteries or other psu.
Perhaps consider an up/down buck converter to it will still work when the battery drops below 7v.
Never used power saving on the Uno board, but sure a search will reveal lots of ways.
You need to provide the boards and batteries current ratings to work out how long they will run each board for.
Think you have two choices, to use the existing boards you will need large batteries to last a month, or design and build boards with minimal low power parts and so smaller batteries, or add solar panels etc.
Can you elaborate as to how I can turn on and off the GSM shield via the uno? That would be ideal. If I can just cut power to the GSM when it's not in use, and then turn it on when some condition is met, this will totally work and I can use the arduino battery saving libraries to just optimize the uno.
any help here is greatly appreciated.
ricky101:
The GSM shield can be turned on and off by using the appropriate pins and the Uno, so you can save a lot of power there.
Typically the GSM peaks at 2 amps when sending out, so a 1000 or 2200uf capacitor across its power rail will assist with that peak from the batteries or other psu.
Perhaps consider an up/down buck converter to it will still work when the battery drops below 7v.
Never used power saving on the Uno board, but sure a search will reveal lots of ways.
You need to provide the boards and batteries current ratings to work out how long they will run each board for.
Think you have two choices, to use the existing boards you will need large batteries to last a month, or design and build boards with minimal low power parts and so smaller batteries, or add solar panels etc.
Can you elaborate as to how I can turn on and off the GSM shield via the uno? That would be ideal. If I can just cut power to the GSM when it's not in use, and then turn it on when some condition is met, this will totally work and I can use the arduino battery saving libraries to just optimize the uno.
any help here is greatly appreciated.
You don't tell us what shield you have, but it should be easy to do that - Ususally (at least on SIM900 based shields), you can turn it off with an AT command, and turn it on by applying a LOW pulse ( 0V) to the PWRKEY pin.
