Extreme low power data logging shield for Arduino

Name: Extreme low power data logging shield for Arduino
SKU: 1886
Price: 24.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.33 (11 reviews)

(11 Reviews)

Low power data logging shield

Designed by Dead_Bug_Prototypes in Norway

Extreme low power data logging shield for Arduino 2

Extreme low power data logging shield for Arduino 3

Extreme low power data logging shield for Arduino 4

Retired

This product is no longer available for sale. The seller may be offering an improved version or it may be hanging out on the beach, enjoying the retired life.

Low power data logging shield

It is an extreme low power data logger shield for Arduino. The circuitry is set up so the Arduino draws no power when the logger is sleeping in-between measurements. This means that the logger can be running for weeks, months and even years on regular batteries. All log data can be stored on an onboard micro SD card. I don’t know the maximum size that can be used, but I have had no problems with a 2Gb micro SD card.

I ran a test and had the data logger running from 31.07.2013 to 14.08.2013 making a measurement of light, temperature and battery status every 30 seconds. This gave me a total of 32.902 measurements from a 7.2V LiPo 900mAh battery. But as the system draws almost no power in sleep mode (0.03uA @ 7.2V) this could easily be 32.000 measurements of a frequency of 1 hour that would amount to something like a 3,5 year running time on a 900mAh battery. From a regular DURACELL 9V battery I got 15.400 measurements.

Why use this shield? The shield is for applications that could stay unattended for weeks and months, -even years before the battery needs replacement. What is unique with this data logger shield is that it takes control over the power input to the Arduino. It cuts power to the Arduino altogether and only awakes Arduino to take a measurement and log it, and then Arduino resets the RTC in effect cutting its own power supply. Other designs are available that does all kinds of tricks with the Atmel chip to conserve power but no matter how good these techniques are, you still have the quiescent current of the onboard voltage regulators and that could be en the range of 5-15mA. A regular Arduino draws about 25mA and with my 900mAh LiPo that would give you something like 36 hours of running time and 4370 measurement (one entry every 30 seconds) With my shield the same unmodified Arduino ran for 14 days giving me 32.000 measurements from the same 900mAh LiPo.

You can find a sample sketch here https://github.com/DeadBugPrototypes/DLS20 to get you started with the shield. The following pins are used by the shield;

A3 – Voltage monitor for the input voltage. If not needed a trace (marked on the PCB) can be cut to release it for other use.
A4, A5 – is used for I2C communictation with the RTC. Other I2C devices can be added to the bus.
D8 – is used for chip select for the SD card
D11, D12, D13 – is used by the SD card but other SPI devices may be added

Any drawbacks? As it stands the input voltage cannot exceed 10V. But as this device probably would be run using a regular 9V battery or a 7.2V LiPo that should not be a big issue.

Tips: The micro SD card holder is of the flip open type. It might seem to be of the type that you push the card into the slot, but it’s not. To operate you have to open the holder by pushing the top part in the ‘open’ direction. Then align your micro SD card and take note that the notch is aligned with the bottom half. Then flip the lid back over the SD card an lock it by pushing it in the locked position. See the reference pictures.

Getting Started: There are some considerations with how to set up this system and how you should write your sketch (program) for the Arduino. I would recommend that you started by testing the supplied demo sketches that is available at Github

So a good start would be to test the shield like this;

Putt the RTC battery (CR1220) in its holder on the shield.
Mount the shield on your Arduino
Upload the Set_RTC sketch that will set RTC date/clock to your PC’s system time. (now the shield can be removed from the Arduino and the RTC will continue working while the battery is in place)
Upload the Read_RTC and open the serial monitor to check that the clock is working and keeps time.

Now you can see how the shield works.

Upload the DLS_ShieldTest sketch. This sketch is set up to read a DS18B20-PAR temperature sensor and a LDR to measure light, but if nothing is mouted on the proto area the shield should still write to the micro SD card every 30 seconds.
After the sketch is loaded on your Arduino, remove the USB and any power cable to the Arduino.
Attach a 6-10V power source to the shields power jack.
The shield should come alive every 30 seconds and write its data to the micro SD card, then shut the power off.

Feel free to use these programs as a start for you data logger. The DLS_ShieldTest_10min works exactly the same way but has a 10 minutes delay (or you can change it from 1 to 59 minutes)

These are some of my customers

University of Oslo, Norway
University of Idaho, US
University of Southern Maine, US
University of Texas, US
University of Oulu, Finland
Soil and Crop Department Plant Sciences, US
Royal Meteorological Institut, Belgium
Grinnell College, US
University of Namur - Department of Geology, Belgium
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, US
ELMICRO Computer, Germany
King's College London, United Kingdom
University of Wisconsin Madison Center for Limnology, US
Rochester Institute of Technology, US
NM Bureau of Geology, US
Laboratoire EDYTEM, France

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.90)

Documentation: (3.20)

Shipping: (4.80)

Communication: (4.40)

Peter | March 29, 2018

Highly recommend this data logger shield for Arduino.

Highly recommend this data logger shield for Arduino. I bought tree of them so far. Performance wise it will obviously take some additional time to check for battery life expectancy, but so far so good. The card sleep functionality in my opinion is a major advantage compared to other data logger shields on the market.

I believe though the card would benefit from changing the micro SD card slot for an ordinary SD card slot. It would be a great advantage, especially when changing cards during field working conditions. In my case I find the micro SD card easy to drop and the tiny card case locking mechanism easy to accidentally dent or bend when replacing cards (and the situation will probably aggravate with more usage). There is plenty of area left on the shield and using some of the (empty) prototyping area how many potential users would really miss that lost area?

The developer mentions having used the card with a 2GB card size. I have tried with Sandisk 16GB and it works just fine.

The shield documentation uploaded to Git hub have the benefit of (occasionally) being less informative and perhaps somewhere even incorrect , so it encourage you to read it in more detail before you start messing around with the code.

I had some questions, requests and remarks and contacted the developer. He was most accommodating and helpful. Responded quickly.

Ofir | Feb. 25, 2018

Great

The first one I got was defective but Geir was very helpful with solving the problem.
I sent it back to him and got it back fixed.
It is working fine now.
I manage to get 20,024 reading of Temp/Humid from a regular 9v battery.

Richard | Nov. 9, 2017

Overall this is a very good shield. Worded exactly as stated

This shield worked perfectly for our battery operated Arduino loggers. We are using a number of these shields at an edge of farm field study monitoring and recording water depth from a pressure transducers.

Paul | July 7, 2017

Great product

Great idea of how to reduce power.
Nice looking board, the only thing I would change is the SD card holder to,a click in type .
The example software works well and is easy enough to change to,what you want it to do.
I have just ordered a second board.
It would be nice to get a smaller board that would some how fit with an arduino pro mini .
Or a cut down version you could just use to time turning somthing on or off.

Anyway , great product and I'm glad I found it.

Andreas Botnen | May 2, 2017

Good shield to build an efficient logger

The shield was exactly what we needed to build loggers that could be placed in the field for a longer period in our research project at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute.

Thomas | Nov. 28, 2016

Great product. Works great!! Excellent Communication!!

We are doing a lot of environmental work in caves and wetlands. We use data loggers for most of the data collection. However commercial loggers are inadequate to operate some special purpose sensors. Most commercial loggers will open the gate and collect data before the sensor has a chance to warm up. Some sensors have to go through a heating cycle before they can operate correctly. The Arduino Uno works great as a controller and performs tasks to condition the sensor before data can be taken. However, this requires a fair amount of current when the logger is in sleep mode. There is always current going to the logger. Caves that we explore are not readily accessible making servicing the equipment inconvenient. This shield completely shuts down the logger in-between data collection. The timing cycles are very accurate and repeat day after day with no noticeable loss in time. This device can operate very efficiently on a single 9 volt battery. Data is collected on a single Micro SD card. To collect data, one simply exchanges cards and moves on to the next location. This shield allows the Arduino to be a very efficient data logger.

Michael | April 29, 2016

Good product. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another if needed.

I'm mainly using it to log temperature data in and around a cold frame in my vegetable garden. I'll be adding soil moisture logging and maybe something to open a vent when it gets too warm.

I gave 3/5 for communication only because no communication with the seller was needed but there doesn't seem to be a "N/A" type of rating to use.

Chris | Dec. 7, 2015

Very useful device. Better documentation needed.

The data logger was bought to record battery voltage in a remote Antarctic camp every 15 minutes for 3 months in summer 2015/6. Existing solutions draw significant power, whereas this device draws almost none.

Problems were encountered because the Data Logger does NOT work with UNO r2 - it looks as if it does, but stops after a few recordings. I bought UNO r3 and it worked. Also I inadvertently reversed the shield power leads, which, although there is protection against this, apparently caused the shield to stop indicating SD card recording. It took some time to work this out.

Geir was very patient and helpful in debugging the device, allowing me to get the Data Logger ready in time for deployment to Antarctica.

The device will return in February 2016.

I was impressed with the ability of the datalogger to record for extended periods, and bought a second one.

The documentation was correct, but a bit too short in my opinion. I would have liked a little more explanation of how the logger worked, with better specifications and a description of the software.

Geert | July 7, 2015

Perfect data logger solution

The product was exactly what I needed, it works perfectly. Now I can keep the power consumption of the arduino under control for my logger application.

Louis | Feb. 13, 2015

This is exactly what I needed

I was looking at a way to have the ARDUINO hooked to sensors collect data over the whole summer without having to install solar pannels or recharge the battery. This shield is precisely what I needed. I installed my sensor with a 9 volt battery and it lasted 2 months in a corn field, recording data every 15 minutes. Not sure if the battery was close to empty or not, but it was still recording data when I pulled it out. Being newbies to ARDUINO, we struggled programming the code to use our sensor with the shield. Since it is not as broadly used as other shields, there was not much readily available pieces of code and info to dig in. This is why I gave 2 starts for documentation, but communicating on the forum, we were able to jump the hoops and make it work after a couple question/answer iterations. Thank for the good work and I recommend this shield to anybody that needs to log data for a long period of time.

Tim | July 17, 2014

Highly recommended!

I recommend this product for low power data logging. The product works as described so far, and I have had a great experience working with the supplier for technical support and programming help.

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Retired

This product is no longer available for sale. The seller may be offering an improved version or it may be hanging out on the beach, enjoying the retired life.