Ultra

Ultra is our attempt to make a low power Arduino compatible board. What we wanted to achieve is not just a low power Arduino compatible board, but most importantly capable of interfacing with wide range of sensors used in applications such as geo-technical, precision agriculture, structure monitoring, and other similar application that are usually used in remote area.

What Ultra is not capable of, is applications that requires very small energy harvesting (think thermal, vibration) to stay alive. Plan is in the pipeline to make one though.

We always thought that the ATmega picoPower® feature should be utilized to the fullest.  This board utilizes full SMD components to reduce the cost of assembly. Ultra can be powered by either the USB, external DC source, Li-Ion/Polymer or all of them at the same time. Ultra runs on 3.3 V rail as most low power interface runs on 3.3 V rail or lower. A low power 32.768 kHz is present to allow the board use it as a asynchronous timing source during power safe mode. This removes the need of an external dedicated RTC IC.

Preliminary specifications:

• Microcontroller – ATmega328P-AU
• Main clock – Internal RC 8 MHz oscillator
• Secondary clock – External 32.768 kHz for RTC clock source
• Operating voltage – 3.3 V
• External DC source range – 7.5 – 36 V, 2 A
• Battery – Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer with temperature monitor for charging
• Battery charging – Maximum 500 mA charge current
• On board temperature sensor – MCP9700 connected to ADC7
• Battery voltage monitoring – Connected to ADC6
• USB port protection – 500 mA resettable fuse
• Analog reference voltage with LC filter
• Indicator LED connected to digital pin 13
• Dimension – 55.88 mm x 68.58 mm (same form factor as Uno and Duemilanove)
  

All design documentation related to Ultra board development is placed here. Please note that Ultra is still under development and testing. You are free to use the design files at your own risk.