• Tweet
• Pin It

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1710326172/boostick-small-aa-voltage-booster?ref=recs_top

A single AA battery is used to provide 5V or 3.3V (or other voltages by tuning the feedback resistors). A boost regulator provides the “over”voltage.

At 5 V, 200 mA output, BooSTick can handle even the biggest Arduinos. Even if you’re sloppy with power management in your code and you use a power hungry shield, you can use two BooSTicks in parallel to provide even more than 200 mA.  Or better yet, connect a two battery AA holder to achieve more than 550 mA at 5 V.  That’s enough to charge a cell phone!

Remote sensors:​ I used the BooSTick to power a TI RF2500 microcontroller board with a low power radio: http://www.ti.com/tool/EZ430-RF2500 with sensors attached to it. I needed to make sure the accelerometer I wanted to use for the POV light was in the right acceleration range so the wheel rotation wouldn’t just max it out all the time. I used the RF2500 to take acceleration measurements and radio them back to my PC.

Specifications:

Voltage outputs:

• 3.3 V (with jumper installed)
• Pull the jumper for a full 5V supply! (included)
• Other voltages between 1.8 V and 5.5 V are achievable by tuning the feedback resistors. Specify different voltage if desired.

Current limit (with new batteries). This is intended to be a peak current or a pulsed current.  A new battery will only last about 20 minutes at these levels before the output voltage drops more than 10%.

• 5V: 220 mA
• 3.3V: 320 mA
• Valid for both Alkaline and NiMH
• Want more current?  Attach a 2 battery holder to achieve over 750 mA at 3.3 V and over 550 mA at 5 V.  That’s enough to charge a cell phone!

Run time:

• 5V, 50 mA: 6 hrs
• 3.3V, 50 mA: 12 hrs
• Valid for both Alkaline and NiMH
• Lower current/voltage generally leads to proportionally longer run time or more
• Want more run time?  The version that ships will accommodate a C size battery holder for more than 2x run time!

Indicators:

• Green power on LED
• Red low battery LED

BooSTick is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Files are up on Hackaday:

https://hackaday.io/project/7050-boostick-small-aa-voltage-booster

200% funded and less than 10 days remaining on Kickstarter!

Related Posts

• 

  How to Control NeoPixel Installations via Wi-Fi Using Fishino and NodeMCU with Python
  How to Control NeoPixel Installations via Wi-Fi Using Fishino and NodeMCU with Python
• 

  How to Adjust X and Y Axis Scale in Arduino Serial Plotter (No Extra Software Needed)
  How to Adjust X and Y Axis Scale in Arduino Serial Plotter (No Extra Software Needed)
• 

  Building a 3D Digital Clock with Arduino
  Building a 3D Digital Clock with Arduino
• 

  Creating a controller for Minecraft with realistic body movements using Arduino
  Creating a controller for Minecraft with realistic body movements using Arduino

3 Comments