Turning off Onboard LED - Expansion Board
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Sorry if this was already asked, how do i turn off onboard LED's (I have a FiPy Module) sitting on expansion board with two LED's active, Green and Red on Expansion board
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@Rakesh-Maduupu note that the 1.0 version of that board had a regulated 3.3V output, which you could have used to power the module directly. There are probably other similar boards.
Do you actually have any need for any of the features of the expansion board other than USB power? Also how much power do you need (peak) and how much energy during an awake cycle?
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@jcaron Thank you for the message, so am using something similar as mentioned below in the URL - https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2000.html
I do not have much options other than going with USB as I intend to use Solar, anything that comes to your mind, which can power via battery but can still charge battery at the same time.
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@Rakesh-Maduupu note that the various expansion boards and shields are generally not designed to optimise power consumption when powered through USB. IIRC the PIC which does the USB/UART conversion for instance is in a lower power state when on battery (when it doesn’t have anything to do) compared to when it’s connected to USB. I think there were also issues in some versions with regulators drawing more when on USB. And of course the LEDs.
If you want to optimise power consumption you should probably avoid powering via USB (which most likely also involves useless double regulation, first to 5V then to 3.3V).
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Thank you Folks, I appreciate different perspectives, the model was designed in such a way that power is through USB while the USB will be a connected to a microchip which has solar panel and battery integration onboarded. I could work with different options presented here
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@Rakesh-Maduupu Just desolder the LED. It's not worth the time to change the software for an unknown schematic that could change without notice.
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The green LED indicates a USB connection. If you power it through battery, the green LED is off.
The red LED indicates charging of the battery and the orange LED can be disabled by toggling one of the pins (pin P16 I believe)
I thought this was in the documentation, but I couldn't find it either, I'll make sure it gets added!
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@Rakesh-Maduupu Pycom does not provide detailed information about the expansion board. It might be that to the LEDs cannot be controlled by software. Do they also light up when the board is operated from the battery? The LEDs indicate USB power and charge status, which both are only used when USB power is present.
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@robert-hh problem is not about LED problem is its consumption of battery as it will be placed in a remote location.
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@Rakesh-Maduupu A black sticker should do the job.
