To much powerconsumption on mkrwan 1310 with mkr connector carrier

Official Hardware MKR Family MKR Shields
1

I am using a "mkrwan 1310" which is sitting on top of a "mkr connector carrier" with 14 grove connectors.
On one grove connector i am using a small grove board with a relay to open an close a 12 volt solenoid.
I am using a 12 volt battery for the solenoid and to power the mkr wan.
So i connected 12 volt to the vin port of mkr connector carrier which in turn powers the mkrwan 1310.
I have bridged the Vin port of the mkrwan 1310 to the 5v pin of the mkrwan 1310 in order to get if working.
Everything works fine except that my 12 volt 2.1Ah battery is empty after one week.
I thought the mkrwan 1310 would consume very little amount of power.

Thanks Jo

2

The relay probably uses bulk of the energy stored on the battery...

And did you put the MCU to sleep and maybe disable the radio?

3

Of course there are many other factors that can consume current; like the sensors and voltage dividers and relays.

Runs for >44 days without a MPTT controller that has a display. With a MPTT controller that has a display the project runs for 8 days. Those values are without using sleep and transmitting 11 times a second 24/7.

Did you calculate and incorporate how much current the relay consumes?

4

I use lorawan and it communicates each 10 sec. The relay is not activated for the moment

5

The relay is not active at the moment so it must be the mkrwan with the grove connector.
can it be that the lorawan signal eats so much power (each 10 sec a message)?

6

Not familiar with the radios on the Lorawan but I supposed there are SLEEP modes too that you should put the radio into when not transmitting data.

For example, the popular NRF24 has a power-down, standby, and active power domains. You only need to be in the "active" mode when transmitting actual data.

7

If I had your project sitting in front of me and my trusty DMM, I might be able to answer that question; post#5.

8

Ok thanks i will try

9

Yes, but LoRaWAN to where ?

Are you sending your data into the free to use TTN (The Things Netowork) ?

10

Correct i am using the The Things Stack with Datacake for visualization

11

Do remember there is a 30 seconds air time per day fair use policy for TTN, its the basis of why you get it for free.

Sending a message every 10 seconds considerably exceeds the fair use limit, by about 15 times best case and maybe as much as 300 times.