I have just bought a new battery for my Electron
A 3.6v 19Ah battery to ensure its lasts as long as possible.
However, when it is plugged in and running, it is not giving me an accurate State Of Charge.
Its a brand new battery and the SoC is coming up as 1.2%
Is the state of charge specific to the LiPo battery?
If so, is there a way of finding an accurate percentage of different batteries?
that is the battery I am using, sitting in a battery holder, plugged into the same plug as the LiPo battery as it would not power the device through the GPIO pins.
You can’t use this battery because it can not handle the current the Electron requires to run.
The Electron can use up to 2,000mA of current and this battery has a max continuous discharge of 230mA which is 10x less than the Electron consumes at its max power consumption.
The SOC reading is low because the Electron is pulling to much power for this cell which drops the cells output voltage.
I need an extremely long life battery (as long as possible) as my Electron does not do much.
It records a high input once a second. But sleeps when nothing is recorded after 10 minutes.
What sort of battery would you recommend? The LiPo does not last long enough and recharging it every day is not an option.
Yea, the power consumption will depend on how high the cellular power is bumped up to communicate with the cell tower and this is done automatically. The max power consumption can be 2000mA so the battery needs to be able to handle that much at least to be safe.
Just be sure to get a battery protection circuit with the battery to prevent under and over discharge and short circuits just like the battery that comes with the Electron has built in. Batteryspace can supply you with one already installed if you desire, just ask them to add it.
It adds up so it’s best to calculate the real world power draw.
You can measure current consumption using a multi-meter and we can probably help you measure sleep current draw once you have your code worked out if your multimeter can not measure uA current well.
Powering the Electron via the 3.3v pin will give you the lowest sleep power consumption because it bypasses the 3.3v regulator.
Once you know current consumption numbers then you can calculate how large of a battery you will need.
Temp plays a role in this also since battery capacity changes based on the batteries temp. Batteries also self discharge at a rate of 3% or more per month or more based on temp so lots to think about.
Looks like we can’t power the Electron via the 3.3v pin for some reason. This is the first I have read this. I did test the Electron Sleep mode power consumption and to get the advertised sleep current the Electron had to be powered via the 3.3v pin.
It’s probably fine. It’s probably the same connector and wiring gauge as what is on the 2000mAh battery that comes with the Electron. I would check once you get it if you go that route.