As an expercience desinger on power electronics I know buck converters can be really tricky with several strings aatached, so I recommend two things:
1. rated power shall meet used power, and input & output voltage shall not be to far apart to reduce efficieny losses (heat -> cooler)
2. don't start to build one on your own on opamps, unless you're an experienced electronics engineer. get a preconfigured designed one. nearly every semicondutor company provides those.
When building hobby boards, building in a buck/boost always feels like a big challenge. I've so far opted to buy small boards from Ali express, and have footprint that matches them on my project, and solder them directly on top. Choosing correct ICs and inductors feels too daunting.
As a hobbyist, I'm usually fine with what USB provides. Either I have a microcontroller board that connects to a computer's USB port or I can can plug a spare USB power supply into an outlet, so I don't need to think much about this stuff.
So it seems like this sort of thing will be more useful in battery-powered circuits? What's a good way to regulate voltage in that situation?
Even for battery operation, a USB battery pack might make sense? Looks like there are decent ones for $20 and some of the devices here are in the $2-10 range, without the battery.
It is probably worth noting that in practical buck and boost converters, the diodes are often replaced with synchronously operated MOSFET switches. This causes no functional difference, but avoids the inherent p-n voltage drop.
As an expercience desinger on power electronics I know buck converters can be really tricky with several strings aatached, so I recommend two things:
1. rated power shall meet used power, and input & output voltage shall not be to far apart to reduce efficieny losses (heat -> cooler)
2. don't start to build one on your own on opamps, unless you're an experienced electronics engineer. get a preconfigured designed one. nearly every semicondutor company provides those.
I wonder how well a boost or buck converter could be implemented with an AVR-DB controller. I can imagine the internal op-amps could come in handy.
When building hobby boards, building in a buck/boost always feels like a big challenge. I've so far opted to buy small boards from Ali express, and have footprint that matches them on my project, and solder them directly on top. Choosing correct ICs and inductors feels too daunting.
As a hobbyist, I'm usually fine with what USB provides. Either I have a microcontroller board that connects to a computer's USB port or I can can plug a spare USB power supply into an outlet, so I don't need to think much about this stuff.
So it seems like this sort of thing will be more useful in battery-powered circuits? What's a good way to regulate voltage in that situation?
Even for battery operation, a USB battery pack might make sense? Looks like there are decent ones for $20 and some of the devices here are in the $2-10 range, without the battery.
It is probably worth noting that in practical buck and boost converters, the diodes are often replaced with synchronously operated MOSFET switches. This causes no functional difference, but avoids the inherent p-n voltage drop.