Sometimes a device does not exactly meet the necessary requirements to be suitable for an application.
Instead of developing hardware from scratch or working with development boards, we look at where we can adapt existing hardware as easily as possible. This, of course, saves on development costs and time.
Below is an example of trackers that normally run on 3 AAA batteries.
The customer will hide the trackers in vehicles/machines in such a way that changing the batteries becomes impossible.
The machines are used every now and then, but they are also stored for long periods of time without power availability.
The solution:
We've removed the standard battery holder and added a charging circuit. However, this operates on 5 volts, while the vehicle delivers a 'dirty' voltage of 24 volts.
So we added another galvanically isolated voltage regulator that can handle a voltage of 9 to 70 volts (both AC and DC). As a result, fluctuations and so-called 'spikes' are also neatly absorbed, so that the risk of overloading the electronics is nil.
Battery is a 18650 Li-ion cell of 2350mAh.
Now, when using the machine, the battery is charged, while the tracker can also last for years without a power supply.
So an infinitely long working tracker has been created, which no one has to worry about again.
(For theft prevention reasons, we do not show the finished product)