The 4 nimh AAs may work. I will see if I can pick up a pack from RadioShack and try to get everything to work.
I found a 6AA battery holder and 1.2v 2500mAh Ni-mh AA batteries. 6 in series would give me 7.2 volts, which I would step down to 5v with the regulator.
The transmitter has it’s own power source so it won’t be in the servo & receiver circuit.
NiMH AAs can be 1.35v when fully charged, 1.2v when in use, perhaps 1.0v just before they die. So a 4-pack should be able to run your 5v devices directly, no added regulator (bypass the Arduino’s onboard regulator too).
I’m going to check the minimum voltage for the servo and see if it will work with the 4.8v from the batteries. It would be great if everything could work off of one battery pack. It would make designing the board much easier.
I’m going to try everything out with a 5v regulated power supply maybe tonight to see if everything works like I want it to. Here is another question, is it possible to run the rotation code with a single ATtiny85? I have the USB ATtiny programmer you sell as well as a few spare ATtiny chips, so I was wondering if it was possible. How much would I have to change the code as it stands now, and do you know of a smaller transmitter/receiver combo than what I am using now that would work? Im trying to get this circuit as small as possible due to the space constraints inside of the helmet.
I would say yes as it's done w/a Trinket and a slightly modified Arduino servo library.jc27:
Here is another question, is it possible to run the rotation code with a single ATtiny85?
http://learn.adafruit.com/category/trinket
I got it mostly working, but had a couple of issues. I need to try to draw a schematic so it will make sense of how things were connected and what could be causing the issues. I a. Going to look up fritzing, but may go old school and just do a crude drawing by hand.
I know I can use an attiny, but I would have to change the code, and the rotation may be a little rough due to the internals of the attiny. How would I go about using a single chip like one used on an arduino? If I can use one chip like that, then I wouldn’t have to change the cod end can design an almost complete PC board other than the receiver board myself.
Yes, the code would change to use a different servo library and perhaps different pins. I don't see why the movement of the servo would be any different.jc27:
I know I can use an attiny, but I would have to change the code, and the rotation may be a little rough due to the internals of the attiny.
Sorry, not following you. A single chip one what ?jc27:
How would I go about using a single chip like one used on an arduino? If I can use one chip like that, then I wouldn’t have to change the cod end can design an almost complete PC board other than the receiver board myself.
The arduino is run by an amtel chip right? Is it possible to use just one of those instated of an ATtiny?
Arduino is a "family" name for a lineup of products, most (but not all) of which use Atmel ICs. Uno's now use an ATmega 328p, as do the ProMini's, the LilyPads and a bunch of others. Some newer Arduinos (Micro, ProMicro, Flora) and clones use the ATmega 32U4, which has built-in USB. The Trinket uses an Atmel ATtiny85. See a partial list here.jc27:
The arduino is run by an amtel chip right? Is it possible to use just one of those instated of an ATtiny?
http://arduino.cc/en/Products.Compare#.UyigGoUVBrA
To be an Arduino or clone means (IMO) that the MCU (whatever it is) has a bootloader program loaded into it that can “talk” with the Arduino programmer (or someother AVR programmer) program. You can buy clean Atmel MCUs or you can buy ones with the bootloader already loaded. See this post and it’s links …
https://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=37858
With the proper programmer (or some other Arduino) you can load the bootloader into a clean MCU. But if you can do that, you really don’t need the bootloader.