Hi all,
It's late here... my eyes are drooping, time for a potentially dumb question.
I'm running some LEDs off a PIC 16F628A which is being powered by a single 9V PP3 battery pack, so 9V going via an ADP667 and a little 10µF Capacitor, spitting out 5V for the PIC... it's all hunkey-dory.
I was just! wondering about simplifying the overall circuit even more by having a 5V battery and eliminating the voltage regulation bit... just having the battery output feed the power pin of the PIC.
Seems they're a bit harder to find and are often designed for cameras and suchlike (or really expensive when Google tells you about 5V USB battery packs for about $50). But, of course (I thought!), you can put the batteries in series... so I could connect, like, 4 x AAs in series and get 6V... or 3 x AA and you'd get 4.5V.
Simple question, really... is there a way of getting 5V? Do I even need the full 5V for my PIC and LEDs..? I think the PIC Datasheet infers it would actually work at less than 5V. How do I know what I don't know?
I see Duracell 4.5V batteries for sale, I am assuming these are just a repackaging of 3 x AAs?