Re:TinyPICO – tiny fully-featured ESP32 board
by Rebelgecko on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @03:24AM
(#27818379)
Here's my favorite thing I saw with a cheaper board: Lilygo/TTGo makes a number of boards with built in Eink displays. Eink is awesome for many reasons, one of which is that the display only uses power when you're actively changing what it shows.
Should be great for low power applications, right? NOPE! First off, their official docs were totally wrong about what battery connector the board had. Then it turns out that the board has horrible power consumption during sleep, which is only partially mitigated by melting off the always-on power LED.
Adding insult to injury, the voltage regulator on the board is actually one that was intended for portable battery packs. When current draw goes below a certain level for 5 minutes, the voltage regulator just turns off. Any attempt to deep sleep for more than 5 minutes causes the board to commit suicide.
Should be great for low power applications, right? NOPE! First off, their official docs were totally wrong about what battery connector the board had. Then it turns out that the board has horrible power consumption during sleep, which is only partially mitigated by melting off the always-on power LED.
Adding insult to injury, the voltage regulator on the board is actually one that was intended for portable battery packs. When current draw goes below a certain level for 5 minutes, the voltage regulator just turns off. Any attempt to deep sleep for more than 5 minutes causes the board to commit suicide.