Hello everyone, I am very new to Arduino, and apart from very small projects I made in highschool, I don’t have any other experience.
I want to make a basic Arduino calculator with 16x2 lcd and some buttons. I tried to find out if there is a way to power my project with batteries, but didn’t have any luck so far. Is that possible? And if it is, for how long would the batteries be able to power it? I’m hoping to have an on/off switch and be able to actively use it for at least 2-3 hours before needing to change the batteries.
Thanks in advance and sorry if I am not clear enough.
I haven’t bought any parts yet and I’ll be happy to take your suggestions.
Welcome to the world of Arduino!
Forget about batteries for now. You will HAVE to connect your Arduino to your PC in order to program it and then the PC can also power your project using the USB connection.
When it all is working as you want, then you can think about battery power.
Have you a plan for what you want each button to accomplish?
Good luck and go find some parts.
PS: Paul's response above is great ... worry about the programming but keep that power need in the back of your head as it will come up soon enough... like a phase-2 of project design.
Thank you for your reply
I’m asking this question now because I want to order most of the parts I will need for the project at once.
I don’t think the programming logic will be a problem, and the main function i imagined are “hidden features” that would imitate the shift button on regular calculators.
Hahah, thanks for the advice. I live in Serbia, and the parts here are way more expensive than online, and I want to reduce the cost. I will most likely order more parts that I will need.
Guessing at your experience, I think the calculator is a great project, because it seems simple, but has some interesting ‘kinks’ you may not be expecting!
Remember you need to inout multiple digits and accumulate the into a single operand - multiple times, so they can be modified with the operators - developing a result.
