By powering the receiver independently I assume you mean supplying external power for the LED’s but still powering the receiver itself from the VESC, because the receiver needs a regulated 3.3v from the VESC to operate.
(Assuming your are using a WS2812B strip or equivalent)
Now for the LEDs, I suggest you unpin the +5v pin from the UART cable, this will cut +5v supply from the vesc, but leaves the other +3v3 pin to supply the receiver mcu.
Next, from the schematic there are two ports, front light and back light, each has a data pin, power supply and GND. You connect your power supply to +5V, your power supply GND to GND, and data pin to your led strip data pin.
If you are not using individually addressable LEDs, and just want a way to toggle ON/OFF from the remote, then you can use the digital control pin A2, for this you will need a logic level mosfet (N channel for this example) where you feed A2 to it’s gate (With a small resistor in series to protect against over current), source to GND and drain connected to your device GND. and use that to switch whatever you want On/Off.
If its still not clear, just show me what you got and I will help you hook it up.
@Wajdi one thing I noticed while getting everything ready is the remote battery drains while off and drains significantly while on but idle, had it sitting on a counter for 2.5hrs and it dropped 80%. An auto shutoff in 10min if disconnected and no buttons pushed would be great, I have a feeling I’ll be picking up a remote with a dead battery a lot of the time. I would like to be able to charge every 2-3 days atleast, daily is gonna be cumbersome.
Also would a double tap to turn on be possible to prevent accidental turn on
@scepterr I’m actually working on a new software update for the remote that has an auto-off function after some inactivity time
About the battery life, one way you can extend your runtime by going to menu, and under controls, there is a SGN setting, it can be set to MIN, LOW, HIGH, and MAX. You might want to change that from MAX to HIGH for example. The SGN setting controls the power of transmission, MAX will have the best range but it will also consume a lot of power. Try the other power options and find a balance between range and power usage.
Yeah I have it set to MIN, and the lowest brightness setting, I’m guessing it’s the screen taking most of the juice? Possible for an even lower brightness setting or is that as low as the backlight unit allows?
Most if the juice goes into the display, nrf module, and then the MCU. Unlike other remotes on the market, this one uses a 32bit cpu, which is fast and responsive, but consumes more power. The display does drain a significant amount of power as well, mostly in back-lighting. I will try to come up with an option to adjust brightness as well.
Oh and definitely a screen off while remote on option, if desperate and low on battery or just need the extended range be able to use without screen on
Like triple tap button A turn screen on/off while remote on
@Deckoz yes thats actually correct, percentage is not always accurate. One more thing to note is that when charging the remote, there is an orange LED near the charging port, you have to wait until it goes off to make sure the remote was fully charged. The remote will usually display 100% but its not really fully charged until the LED is off.
Was it connected to the board? Because searching for a signal is probably in full power mode on the NRF… as it is scanning the channels…
And I mean a green connection to the receiver…as I’ve had lots of ride hours with it connected, but also had it go dead on me sitting on the counter quickly when the board was unplugged and searching for signal…
It can be, but depending on the new screen, we might need to change the pcb design a bit to support different pinouts. Software changes are also needed, OLEDs have different drivers than LCDs.
Average current consumption right now is about 110mA. Battery is 900mah, so in average we have around 6 hours continuous runtime, factoring in about 70-80% efficiency due to heat, peak transmission currents and other factors.
About the battery life, one way you can extend your runtime by going to menu, and under controls, there is a SGN setting, it can be set to MIN, LOW, HIGH, and MAX. You might want to change that from MAX to HIGH for example. The SGN setting controls the power of transmission, MAX will have the best range but it will also consume a lot of power. Try the other power options and find a balance between range and power usage.
Also when did switch to lcd happen?
