Hello everyone I am using 6v battery and I want to reduce it to 5v. Is there a way to reduce it using 250 or 1000 ohm resistors, If not how am I gonna reduce it. I need this to provide power supply to ultrasonic sensor that works on 5 V only
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250R resistor would work, but only if your circuit draws exactly 4mA at all times. 1000R would work if your circuit draws exactly 1mA at all times. Any more or less current than that, and the voltage will not be 5V. Most circuits are not like that.
Hello
Take a diode in serial connection.
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An alternative to the suggestion from @jremington would be a linear low dropout regulator like mcp1700-5. This could be smaller and less expensive. Two capacitors, for example 1uF, would also be required.
How much current will your circuit require?
Even with such a recommended supply voltage the sensor may work well with a slightly higher voltage. Like a 5V Arduino will work up to 6.5V.
For an easy voltage drop down I'd use a diode, as already recommended by @paulpaulson.
Any idea what the limits are?
A regular silicon diode will drop about 0.7V and almost anything rated for 5V will work with 5.3V.
But the battery won't be a constant 6V. The voltage drops as the battery discharges.
A standard voltage regulator has a "drop out" voltage where it stops regulating. Usually it's 1/2V or higher. i.e. Assuming 1/2V dropout, when the battery falls below 5.5V the regulator will drop-out of regulation and there will be a 1/2V loss across the regulator.
But there are "buck/boost" that can either cut or boost the voltage to keep it constant.
FYI - A Voltage Divider CAN be used to reduce voltage by a certain percentage. But they ONLY work for low-power "signals", not for "power". That's because the load (whatever is being powered) is in parallel with the bottom resistor, and the resistance of whatever is being powered tends not to be constant. There are some exceptions. It works great with an LED.
power it from arduino 5v pin
Use a boost/buck converter.
Can you provide a link to the data sheet?
@PaulRB @killzone_kid @DrDiettrich @paulpaulson Thank you all for your help.
Here is the ultrasonic datasheet:
HCSR04_spec_elecfreaks.pdf (78.7 KB)
I cant do this because i am using esp8266 and it doesn't support 5v so am using an external 1.5 AA x4 batteries (6v)
If you use NiMH rechargeable AA batteries, which I would recommend for the sake of the planet, the voltage will be around 5V and you may not need any kind of regulator.
I'd be amazed if applying 6V would damage the unit. But as you say Paul, just use rechargeable NiMH and you'll get 5V on load.
AVR pins max at 5.5V but you can feed the regulator VIN 6.5+V to power Arduino.
Microchip guarantees up to 5.5V.
I have used a DC-DC converter to make 6V into 5V with ripples that matter to lab measurements but runs just fine and it gets >95% efficiency.
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