<div>> I had a lengthy discussion with the austrian guy with a beard (Markus<br></div>> I think) who has changed many voltage regulators on the fonera. He<br>> also played with the Wisp station "changing the voltage regulators" to<br>
> go down below 1W.<br><br>i just checked my results of last year,..<br>(some of them (unluckily not the latest findings) are published here (and unfortunaetly in german )-:))<br><br><a href="http://wiki.funkfeuer.at/index.php/Arbeitsgruppe_Hardware_Fonera_power">http://wiki.funkfeuer.at/index.php/Arbeitsgruppe_Hardware_Fonera_power</a><br>
<br>summarized a fonera can imho run with less than 700mW, while beeing connected to an adhoc network, and have e.g. olsr running (but no lan connection!)<br>or it can be used as serial/lan adapter with less than 500mW (10mbit ethernet), or as a lan/wlan router 900mW should be reachable.<br>
<br>reaching such low power levels, needs at least two efficient dcdc converters (e.g. > 90% efficiency) providing ~ 1.6V for cpu/radio and ~3.2V for ethernet,flash,memory,... (up to 0.2V less voltage is better, but your fonera might get unstable *G)<br>
<br>btw: power consumption of cpu/flash/memory/wifi/lan of 2100 foneras are very similar as for 2200 foneras (better cpu, worse lan), but the 2200 have at least on acceptable dcdc switching regulator!<br><br>when using even more regulators (the wifi afair is happy with ~ 1.2V, the ethernet with ~ 2.6V, and so on) you could reduce consumption even further!<br>
<br>but the costs/complexitiy of the setup is rising aswell!<br><br>> The table here says that you can go down to 2.30W just by changing the<br>> bad voltage regulators:<br><br>> <a href="http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/Energy_consumption">http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/Energy_consumption</a><br>
<br>if u look in detail 2,3W is for 100% load, with lan and wlan active, so i guess THIS fonera doing only wlan and idle would be around 1,3W consumption<br><br>but such a dcdc modded fonera 2100 is quite exactly a fonera 2200, which has an acceptable converter from 6..14V to 3.3V built-in, but still linear converters to 1.9V and 1.3V,...<br>
<br>> I am gonna work with Pascal at HSB on changing those bad voltage<br>> regulators, and make the fonera work on 3.3v:<br><br>great! i suggest creating an external powerboard for the fonera, providing as many voltages as reasonable,..<br>
imho old foneras (5V input) are the best to mod, as u can gain the biggest improvements on them. (as they contain only unuseable linear regulators *G)<br>if u want to reach absulute minumum with foneras use the never ones (2200) as their cpu/wifi can be undervolted some percent deeper *G<br>
<br>> Markus also said that you can change the voltage regulator of the<br>> radio chip below the faraday RF cage, and he made tests to the point<br>> of unsoldering most of the components and trying them out with lower<br>
> voltages.<br>I just unsoldered "all" dcdc converter chips, and provided the power "myself" to the fonera,..<br><br>> Maybe Markus can say more about that?<br><br>as soon as i find all my fonera measuremeant results of last year *G<br>
unfortunately i did not write a detailed wiki at the end, as the project stopped somehow very suddenly *G<br><br>at the moment my modded foneras are still lying somewhere in a house in the countryside 1h outside vienna, where we tested them (to verify whether they still work well on an ~3km link after modifying them,..) (they worked *G)<br>
<br>regards Markus<br><br>p.s. currently i`m working on a solar based router for "extreme" alpine environment #0, (and even got some small funding for this (-;)<br><a href="http://alpenrouter.xaok.org">http://alpenrouter.xaok.org</a> (unfortunately only german again *G)<br>
<br>we are using/evaluating arm based cpu boards, to couple them with SPI/SDIO or USB wifis #1 and probably A123 lifepo and a microcontroller doing solar-cell and battery management (including mpt)<br><br>the current (imho realistic) goal is to build a 3 radio device consuming quite exactly 1 Watt in total (in adhoc mode, without any wifi power save modes)<br>
<br>if u are interested to participate/cooperate/whatever, just contact me. (-; #2<br><br>#0 but we also try to build a system that contains easy to get (&& with reasonable prices) parts,..<br>#1 an usb wifi was not planned at the beginning, but we found there are some surprisingly power efficient & cheap & easy to get usb sticks around (with somewhat useable opensource drivers *G) e.g. <a href="http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=303&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=44">http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=303&pl1_id=1&pl2_id=44</a> (300mW@100% TX or RX are "reachable" with minor modifications (without 400-500mW))<br>
#2 especially if u are interested in wireless driver develpoment, regarding efficient power save methods in adhoc mode !!!<br>