The Raybeacon DK is designed to work from a CR2032 primary battery cell. These 65mAh may be enough to feed the DK in Bluetooth beacon mode for a couple of years which is usually a lot. However, if your application drains battery like a hog, or if you need it working for five, or ten, or fifteen years in a row - please meet the Harvester slice.

The Harvester is ø25mm slice board which provides extended power supply capabilities to the Raybeacon DK. It can sink from the wide variety of power sources including:

• Solar panels (PV modules)
• Thermoelectric generator modules (TEG)
• Micro USB port
• Any external DC source, including high capacity battery packs, accepted voltage from 3V to 16V

With ST SPV1050 in its core, the Harvester implements maximum power tracking (MPPT) function to achieve high efficiency for PV and TEG modules. The collected energy is directed to charge Maxell ML2032 lithium manganese dioxide 3V battery inserted into the Raybeacon, or 1500 µF supercapacitor optionally installed on the Harvester, or both.

With special configuration of solder jumpers, the Harvester raises current sourcing limit up to 70mA. Thanks to the pass-through extension socket, other Raybeacon slices can be stacked up easily. Finally, the board can be used as a handy USB port for the Raybeacon. For details on how to configure and use the board, as well as for recent list of solar panels please refer to the Harvester project page.

The Harvester was developed as DIY kit. Smallest component size is 0603.

Please note, the project is work in progress and the published files describe preliminary design. Don't hesitate to leave your thoughts and suggestions in comments section!