Has anyone experience heat on the Candlestick board?
I flashed the example Carloop code on the Electron and a simple onboard led function call. I left the onboard led on, stopped the engine, came back 10 minutes later. It was really hot both the Electron and the stick itself (what you want to call it anyway? Candlestick or Carloop?)
I want to be able to leave it and forget it but not with this kinda heat. Any suggestion?
Hey! We haven’t experienced any excessive heat, but that doesn’t sound good. Can you identify if it is coming from the Electron itself or from Carloop?
The code I used has publish function every second (battery info). You think that might cause the heat? If so what duration you think it should be to avoid the heat? I would like to update the gps location as often as it could be.
I don’t know why your Carloop is feeling hot. The one in my car is not much warmer than body temperature.
If you are using an Electron with the Particle SIM, your limiting factor is going to be data usage. You can use the dashboard at https://dashboard.particle.io to check how much data you are using. Publishing every second 24/7 is for sure too much. You can experiment with publishing when the GPS position has changed by a lot.
I also feel the Carloop getting hot in certain cases. I don’t know yet if the cause is current draw of the power supply when the modem is active, or some other cause. I’ll post updates here when I know more.
Background: The reason Carloop is feeling hot is because the linear regulator is pushing a lot of current when the cellular modem is active, thus heating up the entire board.
Solution: Replace the Linear Regulator with a Switched Mode Power Supply from Pololu.
Minimum operating voltage: 5.1 V2
Maximum operating voltage: 36 V
Maximum output current: 500 mA
Output voltage: 5 V
Reverse voltage protection?: N
Maximum quiescent current: 0.2 mA3
S10V4F5
Minimum operating voltage: 2.5 V
Maximum operating voltage: 18 V
Maximum output current: 400 mA2
Output voltage: 5 V
Reverse voltage protection?: N
Maximum quiescent current: 2 mA3