machine.idle usage

[jubbs]

I have a rain gauge hanging off two gpio pins and transmitting via Lora every 15 minutes. Using the expansion board.

Because I need to count on the interrupt I can't put the device in deep sleep but I want to save as much power as possible. From the docs I understand that the maachine.idle() function is what I need to use.

Ignoring the interrupts for now I wrote the following test code to put the device to sleep using the machine.idle() function and putting it to sleep without the idle function.

I was using 36mA using idle and 38mA without. The difference would most likely be the led. This is way too much for my project to last on a battery for any reasonable amount of time.

What do you suggest?
Am I using the wrong technique?
Will there be more power savings in an upcoming firmware?
Is what I want not realistic?

boot.py

from network import WLAN
from network import Bluetooth
from machine import UART
import os

uart = UART(0, 115200)
os.dupterm(uart)
wlan = WLAN()
wlan.init(mode=WLAN.STA)
wlan.deinit()
bt = Bluetooth()
bt.deinit()

main.py

import time
import pycom
import machine

pycom.heartbeat(False)
pycom.rgbled(0x000000)

while True:
pycom.rgbled(0x330000)
time.sleep(10)
pycom.rgbled(0x000000)
machine.idle()
time.sleep(20)

Any help is appreciated?

Justin

[livius]

@jubbs
As i understand correctly idle it only affect CPU cycles. this can be comparable to:

while true:
     i+=1

can eat 100% CPU - and much power

while true:
     i+=1
     machine.idle()

should use only a little CPU and little power
but if you already have inside loop commands which do wait - then you do not see much difference

Because I need to count on the interrupt I can't put the device in deep sleep

Quesiton is what interrupt?
Because it will be possible to wake up by pin interrupt from deep sleep and i suppose this is your task?

[jubbs]

For the Rain Gauge to be accurate I need to maintain a counter variable. So if I put the unit into deep sleep I can't maintain a count.

Below is my class for the rain gauge. The main loop collects the drip count every 15mins and transmits to the server.

from machine import Pin
import machine
import time

class Drips:
    def __init__(self, pin='P11', gnd='P12'): #G20 G22
        gauge = Pin(pin, mode=Pin.IN, pull=Pin.PULL_UP)
        Pin(gnd, mode=Pin.IN, pull=Pin.PULL_DOWN)
        gauge.callback(trigger=Pin.IRQ_RISING, handler=self.drip)
        self.count = 0
        self.debounce_timer = 0

    def reset(self):
        self.count = 0

    def drip(self,p):
        if(time.time() - self.debounce_timer > 1):
            self.count += 1
            self.debounce_timer = time.time()
        machine.idle()
            
    def get_count(self):
        return self.count

[livius]

@jubbs
you can save that counter to file on flash or sd card

[jubbs]

Then I would need a clock to timestamp the drip / count to get accurate rainfall. My understanding is that deepsleep will stop the RTC as well. Any ideas how would I measure time?

[livius]

@jubbs

if you look into table from esp32 documentation

than you will see that it depend of exact sleep mode
but i do not suppose that all modes are now avaiable on current firmware

but RTC is avaiable in almost all modes