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General Issues > Power Supply

Cutting Down Another Milliwatt

In order to have a better basis for discussion, the RED Systems Initiative has conducted some experiments with sensors, low-noise amplifiers, and single-chip controllers. The question was: how much could power consumption be reduced without significantly compromising the quality of the seismic signals? These are some preliminary figures from a prototype set-up with good performance:

With a reasonably-sized block of alkaline batteries, a system like this could be powered for 12 months. The cost of this power pack would be less than $30. Higher priced lithium batteries with a small solar panel can run for many years. Hence, an operation totally powered by standard batteries or by batteries and a tiny solar panel would not be unthinkable.