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PowerFilm’s BLE Reference Designs provide examples of ultra-low-power BLE solutions, energy harvesting PMICs, and how PV cells can be mounted to a PCB via conductive epoxy or FPC connectors.
Each of the three designs feature a complete energy harvesting power management solution and Nordic nRF52832 SoC. They are a perfect starting point and guide for developers looking to use PowerFilm’s flexible solar with Nordic BLE or other IoT products.
Features a compact PV module SMT mounted to the circuit board via conductive epoxy. This design can run with a battery, supercap, or bank of standard capacitors (default). The e-peas AEM10941 charges the storage element and manages the power delivered to the Nordic BLE device. A custom LDO Bypass circuit allow the nRF module to be power directly from the storage element, maximizing efficiency and storage when using capacitors.
Breakout pins provide access to the full feature set of the AEM PMIC which can be re-configured via solder bridge jumpers.
At 200 lux, this design supports the Nordic blinky, HRM, beacon, and OTA DFU example applications with power left over to implement additional functions.
This is a flexible version of the standard BLE design which takes full advantage of the thin/flexible nature of PowerFilm PV modules.
Implemented on a two layer flex PCB, there is only limited access to reconfigure the AEM PMIC.
The mini BLE reference design features a smaller PV cell mounted with FPC connector tabs. The panel tabs insert on the top side, and the panel is folded around and mounted to the backside.
This design is battery-less and relies on a 500uF capacitor bank for storage. A simple C-Charger comparator-based circuit charges the capacitors and manages power delivered to the Nordic BLE device.
At 200 lux, this design supports the Nordic blinky, HRM, and beacon example applications.