Arm Seeeduino Stalker to Survive 2012

We wanted to make Seeeduino Stalker a field data logger surviving from -40C to +85C, waterproof and off grid. When the Stalker v2 got a LiPo battery, solar charger, and a water proof enclosure, it's taking shape.

The initial experiment is done in fridge and oven, proven OK but not pushed to the limits. Kevin, our product engineering manage took one armored stalker back to home town in freezing northeastern China for Chinese new year. It stayed in the wild for 10 days, record down temperature and its voltage every 5 seconds.


Things needed:

Seeeduino Stalker V2 (The temperature measuring is done by temperature sensor integrated in Stalker.)

Waterproof Enclosure 

2000mAh Li-Po Battery

Solar Panel

Step 1: Prepare the Battery

Remove the screw holes to place bigger LiPo battery, use a foam as a buffer.

Step 2: Attach the Solar Panel and Assemble

Step 3: Data

Comments

[zzaki1]

can you kindly to post the code also as our revision so that we can maximal the usage of seeeduino v2

[mcarrell]

This is a pretty cool idea, and I love charts and graphs and statistics myself I could look at them all day with fascination as to what they mean and could mean. Looking at this Voltage Every 12 Hours chart however would to me seem to indicate a potential run-down problem? It looks as if the device is slowly–like the Mars robot explorer–running itself down on power by attrition over a period of time. Does it use slightly more than it can take in on an average day of sun?

Although the far right end might look like it has stabilized, what if it hits a spate of cloudy days? Is it prepared to weather a pretty intense storm lasting days or maybe a couple weeks at a time? Considering its mission to survive what chaos December 2011 "could be" if a silly calendar means anything, then it should be prepared for unusual extended loss of sun access with a higher reserve or lower power mode to prevent loss of the battery until the sun returns, right? I think a volcanic event of even average proportions could technically block the sun (lower the overall light levels rather than completely block) for up to a week in the area around it if memory serves..

[jensah]

It will gain power during summer and loose during winter and the battery will go down to around 3.0 V and have a max of 4.2V. So there is a lot of overhead in the battery capacity. Topping off the battery is generally harder then the charging <4V.

The device will sleep when not in use, so of the 15 second cycle maby 0.5sek is active. And while sleeping i would estimate the power usage to maby 100uA (0.0001A) and maby a few miliamps 10-20mA.

Without the charging i would estimate that a 1Ah would be able to handle around 2 months maby.

[jensah]

Any code, for us, so we can replicate this experiment in even colder places? :)

[Lapin1]

Nice project, neat contraption ... but not really an instructable. You may send this to Hackaday ... or to Sparkfun!
Well done.