Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Mega Enigma battery endurance test using AA batteries concluded

An endurance test was conducted to determine how long will MegaEnigma run on a set of AA batteries. A previous test determined that a set of AAA batteries kept the unit running in standby mode for 21.8 hours.


First an AA battery holder was laser cut and assembled.


The male pin to 9V battery plug adapter was made to allow an unmodified battery compartment to plug into an unmodified arduino power plug. Note the polarity of the adapter is reversed in order to correctly supply 6.4V center positive at the 9V male plug.


The self monitoring sketch was uploaded and allowed to run until the batteries could not power the unit. Then the reporting sketch was uploaded. Here is the point where the monitoring sketch stopped recording new values.


And the reporting logic correctly identifies the maximum value recorded in the buffer.


And this translates to 62.75 hours of continuous standby using fresh AA batteries on a unit with Blue 16-segment leds. A significant increase in runtime from the previously obtained 21,8 hours on a set of AAA batteries.


The next question is what will the standby time be when using White 16-segment leds.

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