Hi guys, I know its not strictly an Arduino product but I figured if someone knew how to work it out it would be someone on here. So I bought an ArduIMU recently and was programming onto it, I was wondering does anyone know if I can run the board off 3.3v battery? DIYDrones ArduIMU+ V3 - DEV-11055 - SparkFun Electronics. I was checking through the page and everything seems to suggest that it could but the board itself says VIN 6-12v. I only want to run it as an arduino with accelorometer values, so basically just the MPU6000 and the Atmega I guess? I was also successful at programming onto it with my 3.3v FTDI board?
Also does anyone know what that time is that appears as just an int value? I'm not sure if its UTC or something similar to that? And I was wondering if anyone knew how accurate that time would be? I'm looking at obtaining times in about a tenth of a second.
That board uses 5V for the ATmega328, everything else is using 3.3V.
The ATmega328 at 16MHz running at 3.3V is outside the specifications, but it will run.
What about the 3.3V battery ? Is that a Li-ion battery of 3.0 to 4.2 V ?
When you supply 3.3V to the power plug of that board, the voltage regulator will lower the voltage some, and the ATmega328 might not run.
I think the board will run from about 4.0V and up, but maybe 3.6V, and perhaps 3.3V is you are very lucky.
Caltoa:
That board uses 5V for the ATmega328, everything else is using 3.3V.
The ATmega328 at 16MHz running at 3.3V is outside the specifications, but it will run.
What about the 3.3V battery ? Is that a Li-ion battery of 3.0 to 4.2 V ?
When you supply 3.3V to the power plug of that board, the voltage regulator will lower the voltage some, and the ATmega328 might not run.
I think the board will run from about 4.0V and up, but maybe 3.6V, and perhaps 3.3V is you are very lucky.
Thanks so much for your reply, I'm happy to hear the ATmega will at least run, umm in terms of the battery the specs basically say its a LIPO:
Standard voltage: 3.7V
Charging voltage: 4.2V
So I'm hoping that means it will stay above the 3.3v limit with the regulator. Will this impact my battery life of the device? For example would the voltage drop below the approx 3.3v limit stopping my arduIMU before the battery properly runs out as the battery has about 90mAh and I'm hoping to run it as long as possible.
The other thing is, if I can test the arduIMU by powering it with 3.3v from my FTDI board, and I'm able to get appropriate accelerometer and PWM data, could I thus assume the ATmega will run at 3.3v with the voltage regulator?
You are in gray area. If it runs at the FTDI 3.3V, it probably will run with the battery. But a change in temperature could make it stop working.
A Lipo battery of 3.7V is 3.0 to 4.2V.
You can test it. After charging it with 4.2V, the battery voltage is actually 4.2V.
If the battery is drained below 3.0V it gets damaged and is dangerous when being charged after that.
Most devices doesn't even let a Lipo or Li-ion battery go as low as 3.0V.
Using 90mAh battery will not last very long.
You have to use the sleep mode.
Awesome as, so at least that means it should at least run considering my power requirements, the only problem I will have is ensuring it will run for the time needed. Definitely the power saving mode will be very useful or I won't get it to run anywhere near as long as I'd like. Thanks heaps for the link, I will hopefully be able to do some tests tonight from the link you sent and thanks for the help as well.
yay yay links lol, seriously though thanks heaps for that one, a library that will easily place the arduino on low power sleep mode. I'm definitely going to use this. Thanks.
Here is one more :