power routing question

Blank-Disk · Post by **Blank-Disk** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:17 am

I jsut got the screen for my Retro Duo portable, and much to my suprize, it runs on 4 AA batteries. The Retro Duo requires 5v to run. I figure that having the system run on 4 AA's would be awesome, but I want to knwo if it'd be oaky to run the Retro Duo on 6v instead of 5v? if not, would it be best to go with a simple resistor or would i need a voltage regulator?

extremesonic · Post by **extremesonic** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 11:01 am

Things will get a bit more toasty than if you ran it at 5V, but it should be okay, as long as it doesn't get too hot.

Post by **bicostp** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:23 pm

How much power does the unit draw? (Milliamps) You could get away with running it at 6 volts if you throw in a 4.7 ohm resistor, assuming it draws 250mA.

Resistor calculator:
http://ledcalc.com/

It says it's for LEDs, but the math is the same no matter what you're working on. Just put in the required values, and set the number of LEDs to 1.

Blank-Disk · Post by **Blank-Disk** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:21 pm

i can't tell how man mA it draws, would would be a good way to test that using a multimeter? the power adapter says that it outputs 1A.