5V from 4XAAA Batteries

[thedudeabides_22]

Hello,

I'm looking for some design advice to regulate 4XAAA batteries down to 5 V. I'm mostly concerned about the dropout voltage and the current consumption of the voltage regulator. I need to be able to provide 250 mA output current to the rest of my circuit. I was looking at the MCP1702, but 625 mV dropout is really high, since the AAA batteries would drop fairly quickly to ~5.6V. Wondering if someone might be able to recommend a better regulator and give some general guidance.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Funman1]

Here is a page with lots that Adafruit sells.
https://www.adafruit.com/categories/139
What you're looking to do is "Buck" the voltage.

[adafruit_support_bill]

How critical is the voltage? While they don't like over-voltage much, many 5v devices will operate at a little below that. We often power things from batteries without a 'proper' regulator. This guide shows some of the options. https://learn.adafruit.com/battery-powe ... and-strips

One easy solution is to replace the alkaline cells with NiMH cells such as Eneloops. 4 of these will give you ~4.8v. Unlike alkaline cells, the output will remain relatively constant throughout the discharge cycle.

[thedudeabides_22]

The 5V is needed for Adafruit's 16X2 character LCD (https://www.adafruit.com/product/181) and an Atmega328P. Based on the datasheet, the minimum voltage for the LCD logic is 4.8V, so the 4XNiMH wouldn't work in this application. Instead of NiMH batteries though, 4Xlithium AAAs may do the trick, as their discharge curve isn't as steep as alkalines. I could give that a shot, and then regulate that to 5V.