Hi all,
That's my first post, so I want to say "hello" to all of you and "thank you" to Arduino developers whose product gave me long hours of fun!
I'm planning to power my Arduino (duomilanove with 328) with 5.5v USB solar charger (with battery inside), via USB port on Arudino board. The problem is that it's outputting 5.8V without any load and ~5.6V when loaded. I don't know yet how the voltage changes depending on whether there is a sun or not. I know that the maximum recommended voltage is 5.5V, so I will have to add a diode to lower the voltage a bit (if someone gives knows a better and easy to do method, please let me know). The voltage will be in the "safe zone", but as the voltage seems to vary depending on the load, I fear that it won't be stable and probably, afer using a diode, it will oscilate around 5V +/-0.2V.
Now, my question is, what are the implication of such approach? How the voltage variability will affect the clock and the timings within Arduino? My project uses some precise delays (in the range of 50-400 microseconds) and I'm a bit worried about using such an "unregulated" power source, I won't be able to get stable timings. Also, if the voltage will be higher than 5.0V, will that wear the chip (edit: I'm planning to power Arduino 24/7, 365 days a year)?
Any opinions and elaborations are welcome!
Thanks,
Krzyq