I’ve got a Baby-O and an Orangutan. On the Baby-O it looks like Vcc can source about 100mA, including the power required by the Baby-O itself. Is this about right?
Is this also true of the Orangutan? Reading the datasheet for the voltage regulator it looks like that’s the case, but I wanted to check before I made a mistake.
Reason I’m asking is one project I’m working on, each sensor I’m hanging off the Baby-O will draw 50mA. So I was planning on having a 7805 to provide +5V for them. I wanted to find out if this was going to be a similar concern with the Orangutan.
I still don’t 100% trust that 50mA number for those sensors. I haven’t had a chance to hook one up to an ammeter, but I’ll do that before going too far with this design.
Depending on the sensor, you might get very different and time-varying currents, which an ammeter wouldn’t show. You can put a small resistor in line with the power supply and look at the voltage drop (or just use a current probe, if you have access to one) on an oscilloscope. A few capacitors and correctly sequenced power use can let you get much more out of your power budget.
