I am using a Voltaic 6V / 9W solar panel to drive / charge an Electron. While everything is just working fine I notices that when the Electron is “deep sleeping” the current meter - which is attached between solar panel and Vin - still measures a current flow of about 30mA!
Where does this come from?
Hmm, do you expect the battery charging to stop while in deep sleep?
Charging indicator is off and the li-ion battery is at full charge!
Just removed the Li-Ion Battery and the current flow was floating fast between 10-44mA ... With a fully charged battery the Electron consumes 30mA - even in deep sleep.
Have just made a test with a Photon and Photon Power Shield. Fully charged battery and the current flow in deep sleep is at 10mA. With Battery removed it's at 7mA.
Guess that's just some stand-by current flow when there is a voltage present at Vin!?
EDIT:
I just powered the power shield without the photon preset - it also consumed 7mA.
So I guess that the 30mA of the Electron is some kind of idle power consumption when there is voltage at Vin!?
It appears to me that when “System.sleep(SLEEP_MODE_SOFTPOWEROFF, SleepTime)” is used to sleep an electron, the battery does not charge. I have 3 electrons that all show the symptoms - when the electron is put to sleep with this statement, the battery does not charge but when the electron is doing real work - LED breathing blue - the battery charges.
Is this as intended or am I missing something?
More data: It appears that the fuel gauge reading across units is inconsistent. If a take a fully charge battery - reading 87% charged on one Electron and move it to a second electron is only reads 49%. I have 4 units two read in the 80% and other two around 50% using the same battery.
Any suggestions as to why this might be the case - all are running 0.6.0 firmware.