7 replies to this topic

[CwbhX]

Would a 9 Volt battery be sufficient to power the NetDuino for more than an hour? Is there a chance or damage? -Cwbh

[Chris Seto]

Yep, no chance of damage. It may or may not power it for too long, though. 9V batteries don't have much capacity.

[Eric Burdo]

Yep, no chance of damage. It may or may not power it for too long, though. 9V batteries don't have much capacity.

Right... and it would also depend on if you are powering anything else with that too... like LED's or such.

[CW2]

Would a 9 Volt battery be sufficient to power the NetDuino for more than an hour?

It depends on the battery capacity and Netduino power consumption - it draws about 45 mA when running (nothing connected to the I/O pins), so divide the battery capacity let's say 600 mAh by 45 mA to get the time: 600/45 = 13.33 h. However, this is only rough estimation, for more accurate results you'd need to know battery discharge curve and end voltage at the discharge current - the onboard regulator has voltage drop ~1 V, so supply voltage below ~6 V is too low for stable regulated 5V line.

[CwbhX]

that should be enough. I will buy a Lithium Ion 9v pack then. Thanks guys -Cwbh

[Ward]

that should be enough. I will buy a Lithium Ion 9v pack then. Thanks guys

-Cwbh

Or 7.2V. Note that since the board is linearly regulated, the power consumption is proportional to supply voltage...that is, as the supply voltage goes up, the current consumption stays the same, so total power consumed goes up. Where does that extra power go? It's heat dissipated by the linear regulators. Once you're comfortably above the dropout point of the highest voltage linear regulator on the board (5V regulator, 6V or so dropout per above), extra voltage doesn't buy you anything.

As somebody above pointed out, do watch the discharge curve on your battery and be careful about undervoltage. As the Netduino is designed for wall-power, there's no brownout protection. If you're serious about battery operation, you may want to add a reset controller...it's cheap insurance to prevent undefined operation.

[CwbhX]

Thank you for the information I will look into when i arrive at my new home.

[Hai Nguyen]

Thank you for the information I will look into when i arrive at my new home.

I guess you got the answer, but here according to tech specs:

● input: 7.5 - 12.0 VDC or USB powered
● output: 5 VDC and 3.3 VDC regulated
● analog reference: 2.6 - 3.3 VDC
only required when using ADC features


● max current: 8 mA per pin
digital pins 2, 3, 7: 16 mA per pin
analog pins 0-3: 2 mA per pin
microcontroller max current: 200 mA total
● digital i/o are 3.3 V--but 5 V tolerant