Today I put a TPL5010 onto my small experimental TH node and got it routed. I'll use it as both watchdog and wakeup timer. If tapping into a greater than 3.6v power source, I think the next step is to simply have the atmega328p wake up periodically and switch on a voltage regulator to charge up a ceramic capacitor and then switch off, as per JL's suggestion on another thread. I want to keep component count low, though, mainly because routing is getting crowded. So, preferably, the VR itself would have an ENABLE pin, and its quiescent current when DISABLED would be extremely low. I'd prefer that rather than switching it on/off using a separate load switch. Anyone have any favorites and/or suggestions for that kind of VR?
When the atmega328p is ready to do actual work, like transmitting using the RFM69HW, it would first ENABLE the VR, just to be sure there's adequate current available. After it's done and the capacitor is charged, it would DISABLE again, pat the dog, and go back to sleep until the TLP5010 wakes it again.
Well, that's the plan anyway. I'll do my own search, but it might inadvertently overlook such a VR that someone here has perhaps already found.
