It says in the FAQs that the battery will drain twice as fast with ML loaded when the display is off - is this actually true and if so why?
If we allow the CPU to enter standby, this will interfere with intervalometer and any other ML tasks that you may want to run with display off.
Sure, it is possible to disable the CPU powersave only when needed. However, solving it would have quite a bit of added complexity (identifying everything that one may want to run with display off, and making all these tasks powersave-friendly).
It would introduce a new class of bugs. Examples:
- you implement a new feature, let's say a custom bracketing sequence; if you forget the powersave guards, it will only work reliably with display on, and the behavior will have a high degree of randomness with display off.
- let's say you forget to enable CPU powersaving after using some feature; result: a bug that can only be identified with the ammeter.
The benefit would be... 20 hours in standby instead of 10 (5D2). Or, 25 instead of 16 (60D).
If you actually use the camera to take pictures, the difference will be much smaller.
Worth the effort?
What about using the RTC chip for waking up the camera? Some chips have an alarm output signal, but I am not sure it's connected to cpu/mpu.
Does the higher battery drain also appear when the cam is in auto power off ?
I normally don't power off my cams completely.
Quote from: Ant123 on February 16, 2017, 09:42:49 PM
What about using the RTC chip for waking up the camera?
Might work, but somebody has to reverse engineer it :D
Quote from: Roger66 on February 16, 2017, 09:52:20 PM
Does the higher battery drain also appear when the cam is in auto power off ?
I normally don't power off my cams completely.
Canon's auto power off actually turns off the camera completely.
Quote from: a1ex on February 16, 2017, 09:58:54 PM
Might work, but somebody has to reverse engineer it :D
First of all it's need to identify the RTC chip.
Where to find mainboard photos better than this (http://images.wikia.com/magiclantern/images/1/1f/600D-PCB2.jpg)?
http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Circuit_boards -> click to zoom twice -> 2592x3872.
Image quality is not sufficient to read IC marking.
But it looks like one of those (http://www.e-devices.ricoh.co.jp/en/products/lineup2.html)...
see http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Datasheets
-> Real Time Clock (RTC) seems to be related to RICOH R2051 Series ( http://www.ricoh.com/LSI/product_rtc/2wire/r2051k/r2051k-e.pdf ). At least the commands/registers are similar.
but i am not 100% sure which type it is exactly