Long operation lifetime through single AA battery for module

RECOM has released a breakout board to connect the SensorTile from STMicroelectronics to their R-78S evaluation board. This technology enables the SensorTile to draw a stable 3.3V from an AA battery down to voltages as low as 0.65V. Engineers can, therefore, integrate a high-capacity single-cell AA battery into their designs and use test points to estimate the application’s operation lifetime. The R-78S3.3-0.1-EVM-1/STM-1 is a breakout board developed to be used with an ST Microelectronics STEVAL STLCS01V1 SensorTile module and the R-78S3.3-0.1-EVM-1 evaluation module to display IoT applications using the SensorTile module. When powered straight through a coin cell battery, the input voltage can quickly drop significantly after only a few hours of use. This causes the BLE transmission unit to stop working reliably and leaves the energy from the coin cell battery wasted. This can be avoided by including the functionality of the R-78S which boosts a single-cell AA battery voltage of 1.5V up to a stable 3.3V – shown by the R-78S Evaluation Board. Test points for measuring voltages and currents enable it to effortlessly calculate the typical battery lifetime for the module in both active and standby modes. Linking an AA battery and the R-78S assures a long application lifetime and at the same time decreases maintenance costs. An option to use external input voltage from other low voltage sources such as energy harvesting devices which are typical in remote applications is also available.