Thrifty Throttle - 12 volts?

[rich2202]

The Thrifty Throttle 2 (am-2936a) takes a 9v battery. Anyone have any idea if we can wire it to 12 volts?

http://www.andymark.com/Thrifty-Throttle-p/am-2936a.htm

[RyanN]

The Thrifty Throttle 2 (am-2936a) takes a 9v battery. Anyone have any idea if we can wire it to 12 volts?

http://www.andymark.com/Thrifty-Throttle-p/am-2936a.htm

Without knowing the voltage regulator input rating, I can't say. Best to stick with what it's designed to use though.

[InFlight]

Looks like it has a voltage regulator, but no guarantee that it it would take 12v. If you want to risk letting the smoke out, have at it.

Seems easy enough to put a 9v battery on.

[amesmich]

Or you could make a simple inefficient voltage divider. It cant draw that much current.

[Mr V]

The more common 5v VR is capable of accepting and input voltage range not one specific voltage. This one for example https://www.sparkfun.com/products/107 has an acceptable input range of 8-20v. It of course it not the one used on the thrifty throttle, it is just the first one that showed up in a search. If you can find the part number of the one used in the Thrifty Throttle then you can check it's data sheet.

The other option is the diode trick. A silicon diode has a voltage drop of about .7v so string together 5 of them in series between the nominal 12v battery which is actually 12.6~12.7v when fully charged and you'll have a ~9v input to the Thrifty Throttle. If you are using it for testing that will have a significant load that will cause significant voltage sag on the battery then you may want to use only 4 diodes.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

If the voltage regulator were to accept the higher voltage it would come with increased temperature. The 9 volt battery is such an easy item to obtain why worry about other voltage sources.

[JerryBudd]

The Voltage Regulator on the Thrifty Throttle 2 Board is rated for 18V.

However, we do not recommend using more than a 13V input.

[MrForbes]

Go for it! 18v rating, minor temp increase (the temperature increase is dependent on load, isn't it? so something with a very small load like this won't have much of a temperature increase).

It's ok to use an inefficient voltage regulator, when you have way way more power available than you need.

But keep in mind I'm a mechanical engineer, not an electrical engineer, and I treat electronics in a practical way, not a theoretical way

[rich2202]

I finally received a reply from Andymark. Apparently their new ticket system was sending a lot of messages to their Spam folder, and they just found out today.

"The Thrifty Throttle can handle up to 13.5V"