The kit provides easy access to energy harvesting technologies to help developers apply them in future batteryless products.
Customers receive a complete solution covering harvesting of the energy, energy management and storage to the application. This is complemented by component selection guidelines, schematics and software examples.
There are four Linear Technology voltage converters on the multi-source energy harvesting board. These are optimised for different energy sources like solar, electromagnetic, piezoelectric or thermal energy converters. The energy harvesting board offers two integrated energy sources to start the evaluation immediately: a solar cell (32 x 50 mm) and a thermo-generator (40 x 40mm). In addition, users can add further external energy sources to the board.
The Giant Gecko Starter Kit is the second part of this development kit. The board contains the most energy friendly EFM32 Giant Gecko microcontroller with a feature set including ARM Cortex M3 core operating at 48 MHz, 1024 KB Flash, 128 KB RAM, USB, LCD control and low energy sense. The EFM32GG990F1024 can perform complex tasks in the deep sleep mode with just a few microamperes and consumes only 200 A/MHz in active mode.
The starter kit offers a 160-segment LCD display, two programmable buttons, a touch slider, ambient light sensor, an inductive-capacitive metal sensor, 32 MB NAND Flash and a 0,03 F supercapacitor to evaluate the integrated backup power domain. Programming and debugging of the onboard MCU is supported by the integrated Segger J-Link interface.
All necessary development tools, code examples, software libraries and application notes can be found in Energy Micro’s Simplicity Studio. One part of the Simplicity Studio is the energyAware Profiler, which helps to display the current consumption and to create an energy profile of each software function by gathering data from the onboard Advanced Energy Monitor and the Segger debugger. Thus energy bugs of the application can be found easily.
High-efficiency passive components from Würth Elektronik are integrated on the energy harvesting board as well as on the Giant Gecko Starter Kit. Of particular note are the WE-EHPI coupled power inductors, which offer high efficiency based on a very low ohmic resistance of each winding and a core especially developed for rugged environments.
In addition, very efficient EMI suppression is realised by adding SMD ferrites at each plug contact. Würth Elektronik’s tact switches survive at least 1 million use cycles. The LED series WE-SMCW displays the current status with an angle of radiation of 140° and a brightness of 110 mcd.
For more information contact Marinus Rudman, Hi-Q Electronics, +27 (0)21 595 1307, [email protected], www.hi-q.co.za
| Tel: | +27 21 595 1307 |
| Fax: | +27 21 595 3820 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.hi-q.co.za |
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