I'm looking for anyone with experience using an Arduino-based data logger for outdoor sensor measurements (i.e., no mains power available). What Arduino board are you using? What size batteries are you using? Are you incorporating energy harvesting (e.g., solar or wind power)? How long can you run autonomously? What hardware/software implementations are you using to improve battery life? Do you have any deployment suggestions or recommendations?
I am using Arduino UNO R3 board.
A microphone is attached with the arduino board.
We use standard 9 V batteries or D-cells for longer run.
It consumes near about 100 mW.
@Chandra: thanks for the reply. Are you putting the Arduino to sleep at all? Do you recharge your batteries (with wind or solar power)?
1. You can put the micro-controller in sleep mode but not in deep sleep mode.
2. Yes, we can recharge the batteries through solar cells (wind energy can not generate so much current).
UNO is a great option for a lot of applications.
Choose a battery (any size or type) which fits your energy needs in mAh. If your device consumes 1mA every hour, a 1000mAh battery will last for 1000 hours = 41.6 days!
@T. M. A.: thanks for the reply. I don't think any of the Arduino boards use that little of current (mine uses about 130 mA with sleep cycle). I found a shield (Dead_Bug_Prototypes on tindie.com) and a power controller (alanbmitchell.wordpress.com) that essentially cut power to the Arduino when you aren't using it to save your batteries. Looks like a promising solution. I'm going to try out the first option.
@Tyler W Davis 1mA was just an example to show how important is το have a battery with a lot of mAh of any type. The shield and the power controller are great and if you don't have size limitations, you can use a large 12V battery which provides a lot of mAh.
@Tyler W Davis: Wondering how the Dead_Bug_Prototypes shield worked for you. I'm looking for ways to put UV sensors into the field for a long time before retrieval, and this solution seems perfect. Cheers.
@Jonathan M Brown: I found the Dead Bug DLS2.0 shield to work rather well. I haven't worked with it in a while, due to other things, but I remember easily converting my application code to his example code and running a 5Ah Li-ion battery uninterrupted for about two months (sampling a thermocouple, thermistor, and IR sensor every 10 minutes). Unfortunately I didn't have the SD card slotted correctly, but during earlier tests, everything was saved correctly. The reason I haven't reviewed it yet is because I'm waiting to re-do my experiment (with the SD card correctly inserted!). My issues were regarding changing the sampling interval (in my opinion, this wan't well documented) and monitoring the battery voltage (the shield has one port with a voltage divider, but not sure what the two individual resistance values are or which internal voltage it's measuring and I wasn't getting values I felt were right). I'm sure these issues could be cleared up with the developer. Best of luck on your deployment! I would be interested in hearing what you decided upon.
We've had great success with the 8mhz 3.3v Pro-Mini style boards as the basis of a data logger, with DIY underwater housings built from PVC:
Cave Pearl Data Logger: A Flexible Arduino-Based Logging Platform for Long-Term Monitoring in Harsh Environments
Paper (Open Source): http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/18/2/530
It's not hard to pass one year on AA batteries when you sleep the logger between readings, and units with RTC pin powering usually reach >24 months.
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