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Unread 17-12-2007, 21:52
Phil Mack Phil Mack is offline
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FRC #0836 (RoboBees)
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Re: FIRST IR module driver released

Quote:
Originally Posted by billbo911 View Post
The onboard voltage regulator needs at least 7 volts DC, and can accept more than 15 volts. To avoid
problems, a reasonably clean voltage source is recommended to power this board. Avoid having any noise
glitches on this supply that go below 7 volts DC.
You seem to disagree that a better power supply is needed, but then cite exactly why a better power supply is needed, so I'm confused.
If the device is running in and of itself, connected to nothing but a battery like the KOP backup battery, then the voltage supplied by the battery would be sufficiently clean for the simple regulator (that is onboard the device) to power the device.
If the device is being powered by the 12v battery of a complete robot, there are many other noisy loads on it that can easily drop the voltage below 7 volts for however short a time. That is probably enough to cause a problem for the embedded micro controller if it is anything like any other PIC that I've worked with.
So I would probably add another stage of voltage regulation just like the regulator circuit on the device, but with larger capacitors and think that would probably be fine, but I'm not so confident in that idea as to post it as a solution.
~Phil