Beginner question: battery powered moteino

Started by MPParsley, September 24, 2016, 10:10:20 AM

MPParsley

Hi, I'd like to create a battery powered Moteino but would like to know:

1) Can I use a 9V battery or would that damage a Moteino?
2) What pins should I connect the battery to?

I found this schema https://lowpowerlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Clipboard01.jpg, I assume the pins are GND and VIN?

n8twj

The voltage regular on a Moteino accepts a wide range of input voltages.   Here are the details:  https://lowpowerlab.com/moteino/#specs

ChemE

#2
You can use a 9V battery but the LDO (MCP1702-3302) ends up burning 2/3 the energy in the battery since you are inputting 9V to a system that only needs 3.3V.  9V batteries also have around 600mAh which is pretty meager given their high cost.  Two lithium batteries begin life at around 3.5V and fully discharged end up at 2.8V which makes them ideally suited to power microprocessors directly since that entire voltage range is usable and safe.  This lets you save the 2µA that the LDO draws if you remove it or you can just leave your Moteino unmodified and feed power directly into GND and VIN (top left two pins on the drawing below).  The L91 AA from Energizer has 3,400mAh while the L92 AAA has 1,250mAh.  I personally like running off 2 AAA L92s since I can get decades out of them and they are small enough for my purposes.  I don't operate on my Moteinos though, I use them for development and then deploy chips on protoboard without LDOs.