Design recommendations Heat considerations and testing
Digi XBee® 3 Cellular LTE Cat 1 AT&T Smart Modem User Guide
124
Heat considerations and testing
The XBee Smart Modem may generate significant heat during sustained operation. In addition to
heavy data transfer, other factors that can contribute to heating include ambient temperature, air
flow around the device, and proximity to the nearest cellular tower (the XBee Smart Modem must
transmit at a higher power level when communicating over long distances). Overheating can cause
device malfunction and potential damage. In order to avoid this it is important to consider the
application the XBee Smart Modem is going into and mitigate heat issues if necessary. We recommend
that you perform thermal testing in your application to determine the resulting steady state
temperature of the XBee Smart Modem. Use TP (Temperature) to estimate the device temperature.
Convert the TP reading from hex format to decimal.
You also need to know the ambient temperature and the average current consumption during your
test. If you do not have a way to measure current consumption you can estimate it from the table in
the next section.
Use those results to approximate the maximum safe ambient temperature for the XBee Smart
Modem, T
MAX,amb
, with the following equation:
Where:
T
XBee
is the steady state temperature of the XBee Smart Modem that you measured during your test
(if using the TP command, be sure to convert from hex format to decimal).
T
amb,test
is the ambient air temperature during your test.
I
AVG,test
is the average current measured during your test.
I
MAX
is the average current draw expected for your application when transmitting at maximum RF
power; see Power consumption.
To Next Page
Loading...
Need help?
General
