Soooo, I’m supper annoyed with the presence sensor battery life… so this is what I’m doing.
Since a CR2032 battery is 3v and ~240mah I figured I could take two AA batteries in series to get 3v and 1900mah capacity. HUGE difference! about 8x the capacity of a 2032 battery setup.
I purchased a few battery cases with leads and project boxes. I’ve already made one for my motorcycle and popped it under the seat. So far, so good. I just want it to last more than 3 months! If the increase in compaticence is even a lowly 50% efficiency gain, which I am guessing it’s far more than that… the thing should last more than a year. If the efficiency is closer to 100% then I can probably expect 2 years out of this thing.
I plan on making 2 more for my car and my wife’s car. What I do is set up a CoRe piston to open the correct garage door (we have 2) for which vehicle is gone when a mobile presence sensor arrives. This way, the gate opens just as we’re going down the driveway for the correct car.
Has anyone else done this? How did it turn out for you?
Pretty simple project, but here it is.
#First, Take the thing out of it’s case, peel the protector off and either use force to separate the plastic shell, or poke the plastic tab.
Take note of the polarity of the battery
Top of the battery is Positive bottom is negative, so the contacts touching those sides of the battery will follow suit.
##Proof:
Red on top, black on bottom of the battery. 2.88V on a 1.5V Battery test means this is one dead battery!
#Test of 2 AA 1.5v batteries in series. 3.15V is good!
#Solder RED to positive terminal and BLACK to negative.
I left the batteries out of the case for this part. This isn’t a soldering tutorial, sorry. You can find plenty on YouTube.
#Test with battery in…
Green! It works! No more button battery!!
I housed the setup in one of these project boxes:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003A67F90/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I thought of using hot glue to keep things in place, but things are pretty snug in the box and I don’t think it’s necessary. Feel free to glue if you wish. The battery case fits snug against the screw poles.
I used these for the battery cases:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S4YIR4A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I put one in the glove box in the cars and one under the seat of the motorcycle. Doesn’t take up much room at all. I’m hoping for about 1 year of life out of the AA batteries.
I just got my new presence sensor from Amazon. (used) Originally I thought ST used a bigger battery in the newer sensor but I was wrong, it’s still a 2032 battery. You could do the same thing with the new one and get 8x battery capacity out of it.