A smart app for grain level monitoring, for smarter farming. Rotecna equips its Silotronic silos monitoring systems with Saft LSP Hybrid lithium batteries

The challenge: Implementing a continuous level measurement IoT solution to improve safety and inventory management in silos.

How do you monitor your stock to ensure that your flock has enough to eat whilst avoiding health and safety concerns caused by manual inspection of the grain in tower silos? 

Continuous silo level measurement is a proactive method of stock monitoring in agriculture, that enables the calculation of the silos’ refill periods, in order to optimize the feed distribution routes and times, reduce the transport costs and minimize the return of surplus product.

Rotecna, a leading global manufacturer of equipment for pig farms, created Rotecna Silotronic, a sensor that uses laser technology to measure in real time —and remotely— the level of feed available in the facilities. The company wanted to create an IoT device, capable of sending level measurements every 2 hours, for 10 years. Being an international supplier of equipment for pig farms, the device had to be able to work in different temperature profiles. Additionally, the new device should work at 7,5 V so the battery solution needed was 2-Cell series (2s1p) configuration. Saft LSP 33600-20F hybrid solution allows to assemble this configuration 2s1p without needing to add any protection diode. These combined requirements represented a substantial performance challenge for the battery.

The solution: Saft LSP 33600-20F Hybrid Li-SOCl₂ primary lithium batteries

Rotecna searched for a battery partner that could offer a reliable and proven solution. We did a customized lifetime study and explained the technical solution to them. It was love at first sight! Saft LSP 33600-20F is ideally suited for long life Internet of Things applications featuring low base currents and periodic high current pulses up to 1.5 A. The cell combines a reliable, low self-discharge Li-SOCl2 technology, in parallel with a 20F Lithium Ion capacitor. A solution which was chosen for its high pulse sustaining capability at a wide range of temperatures, and its performance stability over the device’s lifetime.

Saft LSP 33600-20F – A new, efficient Hybrid Li-SOCl2 primary lithium battery ideally suited for long life applications featuring low base currents and periodic high pulses

Key benefits for Rotecna

• A non-rechargeable Lithium Thionyl Chloride battery that offers high pulse current capabilities —up to 1.5 A— and a high voltage response.
• A low self-discharge for a fully autonomous solution that can last up to 10 years
• A solution that is stable at a wide range of operating temperatures (-20°C to +70°C)
• A reliable solution that offers the best compromise between pulse sustaining capability, operating temperature range, and performance stability over its lifetime.

Features of Saft’s power solutions

• An efficient, hybrid cell, conceived for devices deployed in cold or warm temperatures with a cut-off voltage above 2.4 V
• A Li-SOCl2 chemistry that exhibits the highest nominal voltage among primary battery chemistries 
• A cell that offers an impressively low self-discharge rate for an operating life up to 10 years.

A spiral construction and a state of the art LIC (Lithium Ion Capacitor) that offers high pulse sustaining capability and one of the highest measured capacitance during a pulse, for reliable operation even at high temperatures.