The ESP battery drain makes the Parkside PMRA 20-Li-A1 refuse for some periods

[Gabriel-LG]

When the battery is full, the charger floats the battery. When the battery drops below 18.9V, the charger tops the battery off. 18.9V corresponds with approximately 60% battery level. The mower refuses to start if the battery level is below 70%. This causes the mower to refuse to mow for a period of about 4 hours per day.

Possible solution: Add a deep sleep, where the mower status is updated less frequently (e.g. once every 5 minutes). Hopefully, this will cause less drain on the battery, enough to make it to the next periodical recharge (if any).

[Gabriel-LG]

I implemented a quick and dirty rate limiting during standby (send battery and accelerometer once per 5 minutes). Also enabled power saving at high. The battery drain is exactly the same, except there is more variance on the battery voltage level.

[Gabriel-LG]

I created a firmware that does only pulls down the rainsensor and report the battery voltage ever 5 minutes. This extended the time between recharging to about 23:30 hours.

• This may help https://www.reddit.com/r/Esphome/comments/19ew3lv/state_of_unused_pins_in_esphome
• Also increasing the resistor tapping into the rainsensor will save some power.
• I am curious as to how much the mower itself consumes. Removing the battery for a day may shed some light on that.

[nsleigh]

I implemented a quick and dirty rate limiting during standby (send battery and accelerometer once per 5 minutes). Also enabled power saving at high. The battery drain is exactly the same, except there is more variance on the battery voltage level.

Is this in github? Mine drains but I think it might do that anyway as if you start it (without sensor) it charges for a while before starting.