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I am working with a ArduinoUNO - 2100 mA battery, and a solar Charger shield. I use a temperature reader that sends info every half hour with GPS-GSM shield called LONET (http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/LoNet_-_GSM/GPRS/GPS_Breakout for more info).

I want to save all the energy i can, i am trying to put Arduino UNO and LONET on Sleep mode.

LONE has its own mode via “AT+CSCLK=1”.

But for Arduino UNO i haven seen a library called Narcoleptic (https://code.google.com/p/narcoleptic/ for more info) wich can solve the problem.

My question is:

Is there any other method that can help me to save Battery with Arduino uno? is it a good approach to use Narcoleptic or there is another method to do it?

Thanks for your time/help and sorry for my English.

Any feedback could be welcome.

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    The uno board isn't very power efficient. There is the USB-to-serial chip that doesn't sleep. And the voltage regulator (I've heard) isn't very efficient. Sleeping the ATMega doesn't really help a lot. Better go with something like a Arduino Mini, and use an external programmer. – Gerben Mar 11 '15 at 16:07
  • Thanks you for the answer, i will try to search info about Arduino Mini. – Peter Black Moore Mar 11 '15 at 16:26
  • The regulator is horribly inefficient, especially when paired with the power steering circuitry in the Uno. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Mar 11 '15 at 19:28
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There is an even greater article on this topic: http://www.gammon.com.au/power

It shows how to reduce your power usage for the Uno from about 50mA to 350nA (0.000350mA) - at this point, you need to factor in the natural drain of batteries.

Also, I have had good success with a project that was activated by a pushbutton, by using a latch - the push button turned the power on; once the power is on, it latched. Then the Arduino can switch itself off, using one of it's pins. As far as I can tell from a simulator, there is no leakage (while it is off, to within the accuracy of the simulator, assuming a perfectly spherical transistor in a vacuum ;) ).

Just in case anyone is interested, my latch circuit can be seen at: http://i.imgur.com/sDvW4rd.png - the two resistors and the switch at the bottom represent the Arduino - +5V coming in the top, GND at the bottom, and one of the pin to switch it off is the switch - this pin should be INPUT to keep the power on; when you are ready to switch of, set it to output -> high. You should get switched off immediately. The switch at the top will switch it on. In the startup part of your sketch, set the pin to INPUT first.

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There's a great article on that topic: https://www.openhomeautomation.net/arduino-battery/

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