A very basic, BASIC question

[[email protected]]

I'm using a PICAXE 08M for a circuit that sits idle wating for an
input.

e.g.

Main:
If Pin1=1 then Flash 30
Goto Main

Since it will sit in this state for hours/days, can someone please
explain how to put the chip to rest to conserve battery power? I've
seen the commands Sleep, Wait, and Pause but am not sure they would do
the trick (or how to use them). I also read you could slow down the
processor somehow, and that might conserve power. Does anyone know
how much power is used in the above example? If it's not much. maybe
there's little benefit to making changes.

Thanks for any help,

Mike

 

[Lord Garth]

I'm using a PICAXE 08M for a circuit that sits idle wating for an
input.

e.g.

Main:
If Pin1=1 then Flash 30
Goto Main

Since it will sit in this state for hours/days, can someone please
explain how to put the chip to rest to conserve battery power? I've
seen the commands Sleep, Wait, and Pause but am not sure they would do
the trick (or how to use them). I also read you could slow down the
processor somehow, and that might conserve power. Does anyone know
how much power is used in the above example? If it's not much. maybe
there's little benefit to making changes.

Thanks for any help,

You need to make some decisions first. How long will the input be
present sets a limit as to how long you can sleep your processor.

For instance, if your processor is asleep for 4 seconds and awake for 1,
you'll save power but you'll likely miss a quarter second input.

The solution to the above example is to set a flip flop with the input.
This
will hold the data until the processor wakes up, reads it then resets the
flip flop.
Use a low power flip flop as the battery drain is almost inconsequential.

 

[Jan Nielsen]

[email protected] skrev:

I'm using a PICAXE 08M for a circuit that sits idle wating for an
input.

e.g.

Main:
If Pin1=1 then Flash 30
Goto Main

Since it will sit in this state for hours/days, can someone please
explain how to put the chip to rest to conserve battery power? I've
seen the commands Sleep, Wait, and Pause but am not sure they would do
the trick (or how to use them). I also read you could slow down the
processor somehow, and that might conserve power. Does anyone know
how much power is used in the above example? If it's not much. maybe
there's little benefit to making changes.

Thanks for any help,

Mike

Hi,

rev-ed has a very active forum for the PICAXE chip where you may get
faster and better help ( at http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/forum/ )

I believe the commands you are looking for is NAP and SLEEP, however
they are both very inacurate in their timing.

The new HIBERNATE should be better, but only on x1 parts.

/Jan

 

[Jamie]

I'm using a PICAXE 08M for a circuit that sits idle wating for an
input.

e.g.

Main:
If Pin1=1 then Flash 30
Goto Main

Since it will sit in this state for hours/days, can someone please
explain how to put the chip to rest to conserve battery power? I've
seen the commands Sleep, Wait, and Pause but am not sure they would do
the trick (or how to use them). I also read you could slow down the
processor somehow, and that might conserve power. Does anyone know
how much power is used in the above example? If it's not much. maybe
there's little benefit to making changes.

Thanks for any help,

Mike

Hmm, well, I think you'll need to build a little signal switch
circuit on the board that will switch on the Vcc for the pic.
in turn, the Pic will boot and use one output to keep the switch
on.
You'll need some diode isolation so that you can also monitor the
input signal to the pic. If the signal goes away for a set time , you
can then switch off the Pic's power via the electronic switch..

basically , an PMOS type switch with low signal switching.
Use a diode on the input to isolate the loop back from the PIC
so that you will see the actually external signal appear at the PIC's
input and not the loop back signal to the switch..

P-HEX fet comes to mind for that with low voltage switching.