August 05, 2013

Running an Arduino for months from battery power

Although it's incredibly simple to create all sorts of projects, after a while it can become quite easy and as long as projects work as expected, many of us don't look into the deeper aspects such as code or energy efficiency. However if you're looking to power your project from a battery, the amount of current suddenly becomes an issue and you'll do whatever it takes to increase battery life.

Arduino enthusiast Hans Crijns had the same issue and has documented an interesting way of reducing the power draw of projects. Apart from the obvious things like removing redundant LEDs and other components, Hans introduces the use of various sleep modes for the host microcontroller and pin-change interrupts to wake it up again.

This is ideal for use with sensor devices that wait for movement until recording data related to it, or remote alarm sensors that can't rely on solar power. There's many more benefits of a low-power Arduino, so check out Hans' interesting website to learn more about it. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.

Have you been reading about Arduino and the types of projects created, but not sure where to start? Then order one our Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:

The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. 

However we don't leave you alone to figure it all out, included is a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. In other words - this is everything you need to get started for a fun range of electronics and Arduino related projects! So to get started or for more information and to order, check out the product page.

 

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