Skip to navigation Skip to content
FAQs

GSM iPack power consumption

In a Symphonie system with an iPack, the iPack battery does power the entire system. D cells are really just a backup for Logger functions if the iPack battery were to fail to charge.

Most of the standard sensors draw very little power, and the logger manages them by powering them only when sampling (anemometers of course run 100%). Here is a power budget for a system that contains standard vanes and anemometers as well as a BP-20 and RH-5 sensor: Assume a daily call is about 90 seconds assuming lightly loaded GSM (not too many packet re-tries due to congestion).

During the call, GSM uses 12 V at 2 A load at 1/8 duty cyle (4.5 ms repeating rate) plus 235 mA base load. So its an average of 0.5 A, (but with 2 A spikes) while on. The logger draws 2.5 mA constant, without any added sensor load. That's 60 mA-hr per day. The BP and RH sensors do draw power all the time because they have considerable warmup times; we cannot power them down between samples. Together they add 8 mA to the base load, making 10.5 mA constant. So the logger and sensors total 252 mA-hr per day. iPack calls are 90 s x 500mA average = 12.5 mA-hr per day. The battery capacity is 2300 mA-hr. At 268 mA-hr per day. That's about 8 days run with no charging. Derate linearly if temperature is below 20 C, to half capacity at -5 C. If the iPack battery were to get low, the BP and RH sensors would not give valid data, but all others should run from the D cells for months.

Download Calibration Reports

Our Calibration Report Retriever Tool is a comprehensive database of reports for the following products:

NRG Anemometers
110S Temperature Sensor
200M Wind Vane
200P Wind Vane
BP20 Barometric Pressure Sensor
BP60 + BP60C Barometric Pressure Sensor
HybridMC Anemometer + Vane
HybridXT Anemometer + Vane
PVT1 PV Temperature Sensor
T60 + T60C Temperature Sensor
R1 Pyranometer
RH5X Relative Humidity Sensor
Thies First Class Advanced Anemometer
WindSensor P2546-OPR Anemometer

Tech Support

Whether you are troubleshooting in the field or learning how to install a product, we are here for you.