Re: Pi PICO W on batteries

From	The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.sys.raspberry-pi
Subject	Re: Pi PICO W on batteries
Date	2026-06-25 10:12 +0100
Organization	A little, after lunch
Message-ID	<111ird8$3kt4v$3@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(3 earlier) <sm0se6c8n2s.fsf@lakka.kapsi.fi> <97F*HqVJA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> <na2976Fn4t9U2@mid.individual.net> <111gtqv$348m3$3@dont-email.me> <111i7m9$3g155$1@dont-email.me>

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On 25/06/2026 04:35, wmartin wrote:
> On 6/24/26 08:41, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 24/06/2026 15:51, Peter Heitzer wrote:
>>> Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>> Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:
>>>>> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 15/06/2026 19:49, Brian Gregory wrote:
>>>>>>> nano timer ??
>>>>>>> What's that then?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> TPL5100
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.ti.com/product/TPL5110
>>>>>
>>>>> I kinda thought modern microcontrollers have this sort of thing built
>>>>> in? Oh, looks like the Pico (no W) draws 2 mA in "deep sleep" and this
>>>>> timer draws 35 nA.
>>>>
>>>> That does sound surprisingly bad for the Pico.  Seems that the 
>>>> RP2040 is
>>>> 0.18mA in 'dormant' (ie deep sleep) and 0.38mA in 'sleep', which is 
>>>> a bit
>>>> better.  So must be something else on the Pico that's not so good in 
>>>> sleep
>>>> mode.
>>> I think (ultra) low power was not a primary design goal for the Pico.
>>>
>>
>> I think that is very true. What attracted me was the amount of flash, 
>> and ram, the availability of wireless and ADCs and the price. Less 
>> than a pint of beer in a nightclub.
>> Arduinos were 3 times the price
>>
>> The ZeroW running debian is a damn sight easier to code for, however.
>>
> Be careful about trusting that ADC, it is somewhat notorious for 
> inconsistent lower bits...summing and averaging helps, if you have the 
> inter-sample time to do that.
> 
Oh yes. It has noise allright. But feeding sensors from the stabilised 
3.3v line helps a lot.

Do I really need 12 bit accuracy to measure temperature? Not really. Nor 
is it a microsecond sample that I need, Ring buffers and averages are 
easy to implement


Onboard is fine.

-- 
The difference bweteen a psychopath and a saint is that the psychpoath 
takes what he can and gives only what he must, but the saint gives 
everything he can and takes only what he needs.

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Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-14 12:17 +0100
  Re: Pi PICO W on batteries rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-06-14 17:48 +0000
    Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-15 12:31 +0100
      Re: Pi PICO W on batteries John R Walliker <jrwalliker@gmail.com> - 2026-06-15 13:04 +0100
        Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-15 13:17 +0100
      Re: Pi PICO W on batteries "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2026-06-15 12:06 +0000
        Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-15 13:19 +0100
          Re: Pi PICO W on batteries "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2026-06-15 13:58 +0000
            Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-15 16:52 +0100
    Re: Pi PICO W on batteries mm0fmf <none@invalid.com> - 2026-06-15 12:52 +0100
  Re: Pi PICO W on batteries Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> - 2026-06-15 19:49 +0100
    Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-15 20:28 +0100
      Re: Pi PICO W on batteries Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-06-15 20:54 +0100
        Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-16 01:59 +0100
      Re: Pi PICO W on batteries Anssi Saari <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> - 2026-06-24 09:33 +0300
        Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-24 09:58 +0100
        Re: Pi PICO W on batteries Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2026-06-24 13:41 +0100
          Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-24 13:53 +0100
          Re: Pi PICO W on batteries "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2026-06-24 14:51 +0000
            Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-24 16:41 +0100
              Re: Pi PICO W on batteries wmartin <wwm@wwmartin.net> - 2026-06-24 20:35 -0700
                Re: Pi PICO W on batteries John R Walliker <jrwalliker@gmail.com> - 2026-06-25 09:21 +0100
                Re: Pi PICO W on batteries The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-25 10:12 +0100

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