This post is practical, but it needs a little bit of context. A big drain on battery life (generally speaking) is big burst draw and then a fast charge cycle. Or the opposite, running down a battery to minimum charge. This affects the chemical processes that operate inside the battery. It is much better if you can trickle charge and trickle output. This way a battery’s chemical makeup remains serviceable for much longer.
In many use cases, there is a minimum level of charge that needs to be available to prime a device. Let’s call this; the kick starter. That is the initial burst you need to have available, but this is not the type of discharge you want, to optimize battery life.
Step down charging
Step down charging introduces an intermediate step. You introduce an accumulator to the loop. This device is slowly powered up. Once its discharge cycle is finished, it goes into a sleep mode where it slowly charges, ready for the next data transmission cycle.
The beauty of this process is that it is relatively simple. The math works nicely. Components are scalable. The practical value is that it manages to extend the capacity of battery life as well as offering system flexibility in terms of what kind of power source is used. Use cases are wide, especially in the industrial IoT field, where long, service free, deployments in remote locations are expected.
Another IoT advantage of step down charging is that the overall utility of a device can be managed based on the frequency and amount of data required. If you need more data, you add more batteries. This extra bulk of batteries acts as a storage facility that can be independent of the core modules. This generates a flexible approach to power. Service techs can attach a fresh battery pack easily and deploy in bulk.
Another value proposition of step down charge/discharge cycles is that you have a better access point for renewable resources, where the supply is often not linear. A small solar panel or wind generator might offer enough “top up” potential to keep the cycle running indefinitely. All you need then is a basic diagnostics loop and your system is ready for the long haul.
