I thought it might be time I publish some details about a recent project of mine, using the PowerFeather in a standalone, outside-based, IoT node.
I'd long been looking for something to tie up lots of elements I had in mind; solar powered, battery backup, ESP32, sensor hub and easy to program. Along comes the PowerFeather which meets all of those requirements.
- I designed a carrier PCB, to allow for solid waterproof box mounting, and connection some additional sensor boards, etc.
- This is coupled with a Voltaic 6V solar panel.
- Code writing was a bit of a challenge, but mainly around fault cases, so when the I2C sensor doesn't return as expected, what is the next step to ensure longevity in a remotely mounted IoT device.
- All information is updated to @adafruitIO, which has some great free tools to visualise sensor data longer term.
Current testing has proved good long term stability in battery consumption (it doesn't get below 90% on a 5 minute update interval) and code error handling.
When I work out how to insert some images then I'll put in pictures of the PCB design, deployed project and some data!