Specifications

47
Chapter 5
Testing
This chapter focuses on the system testing that took place May 2007 through October
2007. This period comprises the alpha and beta testing portion of the project. Testing took
place in Logan Utah, Meridian Idaho, and various locations in California and Washington.
5.1 Alpha Testing
The purpose of the alpha testing phase was to verify and measure the hardware’s
ability to performe within the specified requ irements. All testing conducted here was done
individually with minimum influence from other modules. Figure 5.1 shows the assembled
hardware used in this phase.
5.1.1 Power Consumption
The testing revealed that the entire device sleeps less than 50µA, runs around 250µA
for reading sensors, 2.5mA when communicating with the PC , 8mA with the display on,
32mA with the radio active, and 217mA with the radio tr ansmitting at full power. With
these power modes and a fictitious system with six Acclima SDI-12 sensors measuring every
hour and radios communication every 2.5 minutes, it is calculated that C-cell batteries with
an 8,000mAh capacity could power the system for just over a year.
5.1.2 Power Ports
The system has an auxiliary power input port that can withstand up to 30VDC. The
original figure requ ired was 15VDC, but during the part selection process all parts related to
that input had higher ratings. Consequ ently, this port can now support 6V /12V /18V solar
power. The device also has one power port for direct battery draw and five other switch