I'm pretty well finished on the design, but one of the things bugging me is the powersupply. Currently I just have the battery pack connecting to the board, with some basic filtering. This battery is or'ed with the USB VBUS via a LTC4411, so if the usb is plugged in power will be supplied via the USB and battery is disconnected, as soon as usb is removed, battery is re-connected. The LTC4411 also provides reverse polarity protection etc
I'm working on a supply of ~3.3v (battery) and 5v(when connected to USB), there is no onboard voltage regulation. To get 3.3v (~3.6v) with NIMH cells then it will require at least x3AA @ 1.2v per cell. Should I look at a DC-DC converter to reduce this to x2 AA cells? Which will obviously make it more compact, but will increase the component count on the board. Has anyone had experience in DC-DC converters or can you recommend something? Or should I leave it as is?
Thoughts?
Stephen...