Battery draine....

[paxi]

I see that the cap helps to smooth supply for the active ESP but don't understand what it does for deep sleep where current draw is about 0.1mA. What is battery life now?

[Shardan]

Hello,

in general the ESP can be used with batteries.
That needs some specialised software, i don't think ESPEasy is the choice for this.

The little battery packs do not have enough power, they are just for quick testing.
You may use a LiIon or LiPo battery, they are rechargeable and have much more power.

It needs a specific setup: You have to connect GPIO 16 with the RST and you have to tick the sleepmode box.
The problem with your home server is loosing connection - but this can't be avoided. Sending takes power so
all battery sensors i know switch off the transmitter to save battery.
Remember that the "sensor delay" setting wakes up the circuit so the shorter the period the shorter is the life of the battery.

Last but not least:
A PIR sensor on battery is definitely a bad choice. Those modules can take up to 5 mA of current - permanently.
Even more when motion is detected. How much exactly will differ from module to module but anyways it is too much
for battery use.

Even the DHT sensors take up much current compared to others.
DHT11 takes around 1,5 mA when working and about 0.3 ... 0.5 mA on standby.
Besides that DHT11 and DHT22 are somewhat inaccurate.
If you want a low power consumption use a SI7021 for your project.
Max current running 0,15 mA, on standby 0,06 mA, so a tenth of current and higher accuracy on top.

Watch out, you can only set up one SI7021 as the I²C address can't be changed!
As a secnod sensor you may for example ad a BME280 (temp/humidity/pressure).

Anyways, battery and PIR will not work well, and a permanently running WiFi will neither.

Let's calculate a bit:
Usual AAA batteries have a average capacitiy of 380 mAh, really good ones have about 550 mAh.
Lets calculate with 400 mAh.
Your sensors alone take up around 6 mA.
400 mAh / 6mA = 66,6 h runtime!
And this are only the sensors, the ESP is not included.
My complete sensor modules with TLS2561 luminosity, BME280 (temp/hum/pressure), a DS18B20 and an ESP 8266
take up around 65 mA with peaks up to 300 mA when transmitting.

Again: 400 mAh / 65 mA = 6,15 h !!!

Standard batteries will drain within 6 hours.

A good Li-Ion battery (format 18650, 3.7V)) may have up to 3000 mAh

3000 mAh / 65 ma = 46 h

After two days even such a fat battery is drained!

As you can see there is no way avoiding sleep mode.

To clearify: Even with sleep mode you will be far away from the "one year and more" lifetime
of circuits professionally designed to ultra low power.

Regards
Shardan

Edit: added calculation of runtimes, removed wrong I2C address part.

[toffel969]

Sometimes you can be fooled by what people offer for sale.
The battery packs are pure for debugging for beginners.............
Google for power consumption ESP 8266 and you see they are not the best solution for battery operated sensors.
MYSENSORS is using other RF chip which is less consuming power.

Paco

Also make sure to use good voltage regulator fo mysensors

[DeNB3rt]

My esp12 run 3 motnhs from single 700mah liion cell, 30min deepsleep mode, power led removed. Cell still has 3.7V - lot of energy remaining.

nice one