power News - Page 9 of 17 - CNX Software

May 8, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Split Home Energy Meter Combines ESP32 with Microchip ATM90E32 IC (Crowdfunding)

It’s always useful to monitor the electricity consumption of your house, as you can easily and quickly find out whether an appliance is suddenly consuming a large amount of electricity before finding out from your next utility bill. It can also help remotely monitoring if an appliance has stopped working and fix it as soon as possible, for example an electric pipe heater making sure your pipe do not freeze in a holiday home. In many cases, a qualified electrician needs to be involved for the installation of whole home energy meters both for safety and insurance matters. We’ve seen in the past energy meters fit easily into a circuit breaker box but they may not be suitable for all setups. I’ve previously reviewed an inexpensive digital clamp meter that you just need to clip on one of the wire connected to your home without having to mess with dangerous […]

April 30, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Battery powered MEGO Portable Power Supply fits into Breadboards

Breadboard power supplies like MB102 have been around for years, and some even designed a variable power supply for breadboards, but EVO-IN-MOTION MEGO looks much neater as a fully enclosed power supply, 4 to 24V output, fitted with a LiPo battery, and a display to show current voltage. MEGO enabled on-the-go breadboard projects without any cables for the power supply. Just connect the power supply, and you’re good to go with power delivered from the built-in battery. MEGO power supply specifications: Output Voltage – 4-24V DC Maximum Power – 6W Safety – Overload protection; short circuit protection Typical Power Efficiency – 88% Voltage Display Accuracy – <1% Ripple Voltage – <1% Load Regulation – 270mV Battery – 7.4Whs (2,000 mAh @ 3.7V) Misc – Power button;, adjust knob for output voltage; low battery and charging LEDs Dimensions – 73 x 59 x 32 mm Weight – 100 grams Temperature Range […]

January 23, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

$54 ZMI MF855 is Both a Power Bank and a Portable 4G Wireless Router

Tiny routers usually come with at least one USB port that allows you to connect a 3G or 4G cellular dongle, and since it’s often used on the go, or as a backup solution it makes sense to have a battery in the router as well, as was the case for Marstek MPR-N9 I covered way back in 2013. Xiaomi ZMI MF855 portable wireless router offers the same function but with an integrated 4G modem, a larger 7,800 mAh battery that can also be used to charge your other device. The router looks like a standard power bank from the outside. ZMI MF855 router key features: Cellular Connectivity 4G/3G and 2G networks Micro SIM card socket FDD-LTE bands – B1 1800 B3 2100 B7 2600 MHz TDD-LTE bands – B38 1900 B39 2300 B40 2500 B41 2600MHz WCDMA bands – B1 850 B2 900 B5 1900 B8 2100 MHz WiFi […]

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

ATORCH USB PD Power Meter Comes with USB type-C, type-B, and type-A Ports

Most smartphones are charged over a USB port, and many single board computers are powered by a micro USB or USB type-C port, and USB power meters such as USB Charger Doctor can be useful to evaluate phone chargers, as well as measure power consumption of SBCs. With the launch of the USB type-C connector and features such as USB PD (Power Delivery), old USB power meters are not adapted to the new standard since the connector and most importantly voltages are different, so we need USB PD compatible meters like Satechi USB Type-C power meter. Today, I decided to look for more options on Aliexpress, and you’ll find many USB-C power meters with the cheapest models going for under $5 shipped. However, ATORCH J7-c model caught my attention since it supports both USB type-C, micro USB type-B, and USB type-A power sources, so you can keep using the same […]

September 14, 2018September 14, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Raspberry Pi PoE HAT Launches, But Refunds Offered due to Power Issues

The Raspberry Pi foundation has launched a good number of boards and accessories, and although some people will question some of the design choices, their boards were fairly bug-free hardware-wise at launch, except for minor issues like the board rebooting while taking a photo with a Xenon flash. Recently they also had performance issues with Gigabit Ethernet in the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ board, but that looks like more of a software issue. The Raspberry Pi PoE HAT announced with Raspberry Pi 3B+, but launched at the end of August for $20, however suffers from a more serious issue as it somehow limits USB current to 200mA instead of the usual 500mA, meaning that’s fine with USB keyboard and mouse, but as soon as you connect more power hungry peripherals like a USB hard drive, all hell breaks loose. Let’s check out the specifications first: 802.3af PoE Fully isolated switched-mode […]

August 24, 2018August 24, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

CHOETECH 24W Foldable Solar Charger Review

Foldable Solar Charger Charging Smartphone

A short while ago, I wrote about a tri-panel waterproof solar power bank that delivers up to 4 Watts and comes with 10,000 mAh capacity. I’ve now received a sample of a somewhat similar product, except CHOETECH told me it can deliver up to 24 Watts, which should be more suitable for charging devices like smartphone daily. CHOETECH 24W Solar Charger Unboxing The gadget is supposed to be fitted on larger backpacks as we’ll see below, but it comes in a relatively small package. The thing just looks like some purse or wallet out of the box. Once it’s unfolded we’ll see four solar panel, six hoops around the design, and some pouch / pocket on the right. The “junction box” includes a micro USB to USB cable, some silica gel, and four metal hoops to hook around some of the 6 fabric hoops The text on the photo above […]

August 18, 2018August 18, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Embedded Linux Conference Europe & OpenIoT Summit Europe 2018 Schedule

Embedded Linux Conference OpenIOT Summit Europe 2018

The Embedded Linux Conference & OpenIoT Summit 2018 took place in March of this year in the US, but the European version of the events are now planned to take place on October 21-24 in Edinburg, UK, and the schedule has already been released. So let’s make a virtual schedule to find out more about some of interesting subjects that are covered at the conferences. The conference and summit really only officially start on Monday 22, but there are a few talks on Sunday afternoon too. Sunday, October 21 13:30 – 15:15 – Tutorial: Introduction to Quantum Computing Using Qiskit – Ali Javadi-Abhari, IBM Qiskit is a comprehensive open-source tool for quantum computation. From simple demonstrations of quantum mechanical effects to complicated algorithms for solving problems in AI and chemistry, Qiskit allows users to build and run programs on quantum computers of today. Qiskit is built with modularity and extensibility […]

July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 34 Comments

Pi-Zero-UpTime is an UPS for Raspberry Pi Boards and Clones

Since for a headless Raspberry Pi it makes no sense to use a large UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to keep it running in case of power failure, I bought and tested a Raspberry Pi battery kit a couple of years ago. The kit included an acrylic case, a battery charging board, and LiPo battery and it worked most of the time as a UPS. “Most of the time” means the switch from mains to battery would not occur fast enough maybe 10% of the time (it depends on the load), so the Raspberry Pi board would reboot. The kit also did not include a GPIO / I2C interface to report the charge level of the battery, so you would not be able to safely power the board when the battery is almost fully depleted. In recent years, it’s become more and more difficult to get batteries shipped from overseas, so […]