Hi - I am lookign at purchasing a bunch of RC Switch with Small Low-Side MOSFET devices. I am amazed to see it operates on max 5.5v and an R/C receiver generally runs 6.0v. I am trying to find the smallest voltage regulator to run and need to know the current draw of the POLOLU-2802 on the Vin input.
Why on earth didnt they allow a max 6.0v input ???
Hello.
The version of the RC switch you are asking about does not have an integrated regulator in order to keep the size and cost down. The larger version of our RC switch, the RC Switch with Medium Low-Side MOSFET, has a built-in regulator, so you could consider using that, or you can use an external regulator. The RC switch only draws a few mA, so one small regulator such as our S7V7F5 step-up/step-down regulator could power a whole bunch of units.
If you have a high-volume application where you need each switch to have its own regulator and need something smaller and cheaper than the larger unit I mentioned, we can customize it for you. (You would probably need to be getting thousands of units to end up cheaper than the stock unit with regulator.)
-Claire
Size is the issue for my application so the Pololu regulator board isn’t going to work. What it the exact current draw of the switch ? I might try a Zener diode / resistor circuit to get the small voltage drop required.
It is just a PIC10F322 running at 16MHz on its internal oscillator with no power saving modes. The LED for which the blinking pattern varies will add about 3.5mA when it is on. It is on most of the time when the switch is active and off most of the time when the switch is in the off position.
-Claire
