Playing with electronics again.

 Arduino  Comments Off on Playing with electronics again.
Nov 122020
 

Nothing serious, trying to catch up on some loose ends. One of the fun things I tested today was seeing how low my input voltage can go before the output (5 Volt) collapses.

The background to this is that initially when building Jeti sensors, I used step-down converters to allow the use of 2S battery systems. Some were failing very quickly, and often suffered from brownouts. Therefore I searched for a better solution. Buck-boost converter technology is old hat, just finding suitable ones in a small package was the challenge. I’ve been using these for a while now, with no problems.

In this test I wanted to see how low I could go with the input. As expected, the receiver works to about 3.4Volts, then it complains. The buck-boost converter keeps producing 5 Volt for the sensors, so they are happy.

It’s nice to see that the input range for my Jeti sensors is from 3.4 to 8.4 Volts.

(I should also try if they can handle a DLG. Even 2 if needed. That’s another project.)

buck-boost converter is the red thingy.
need to calibrate the voltages, but it gives you the general idea.

The voltage measured by the Receiver is slightly off, it’s really 3.4 Volts, the measurements for the other inputs are not calibrated yet. I used 10% resistors, so not exactly precision stuff. Will work that out later. This was more about seeing if I kept the 5 volts going. And it does. At least I have a picture to show that now.

today’s harvest done

 Arduino, Jeti  Comments Off on today’s harvest done
Jul 102020
 

This series has an extra voltage regulator, I have a feeling the version that runs straight on the 5V from the receiver is a bit too sensitive to voltage fluctuations. These ones are to be fed from a 2S Lipo or LiFe supply.

Time will tell if I am right ;-