The Adafruit TPL5110 Power Timer is a stand-alone breakout that will turn any electronics into low-power electronics! It will take care of turning your project on/off using a built in timer that can vary from once every 100ms up to once every two hours. Basically, the TPL will turn on periodically, adjustable by potentiometer or resistor, and turn on your project’s power. It will then wait until a signal is received from the project to tell the TPL that it can safely turn off the power.

Usage is easy. First, set your desired delay by adjusting the on-board trim pot: nearly-all-the-way-to-the-left is “once per 100ms” and all-the-way-to-the-right is “once every 2 hours”. Then, connect VDD up to your 3-5V power supply and then your project’s power-in to the Drive pin. Finally, select a signal pin from your project to the Done pin. In your project’s code or design, just make sure that it sets the Done pin high once it is completed with its task. That’s it!

If you want to turn the device on by hand, you can also activate the TPL by pressing the onboard tactile switch (or wire your own switch to the Delay pin).