Evaluation board extends battery lifetime in IoT applications

RECOM's first evaluation board enables engineers to easily test the functionality of the R-78S switching regulator, which boosts an AA battery or external supply voltage to 3.3V for low power IoT applications. The board is equipped with several jumper headers measuring input and output current and voltage. This allows typical battery lifetime calculations in both active and standby mode. The board demonstrates the performance of the R-78S which boosts single-cell AA battery voltage of 1.5V up to a stable 3.3V. This guarantees much higher energy capacities and reduces maintenance costs compared to coin cell or button batteries. This will effectively increase the operation lifetime of an application since the boost converter continues to run at input voltages as low as 0.65V. The board offers the option to use external input voltage from other low voltage sources such as energy harvesting devices, which are typical in remote applications. The load can be attached either through output pins or a micro-USB port. Test points for measuring voltages and currents enable engineers to fully evaluate the wide input voltage range down to 0.65V, high efficiency and low stand-by losses, all of which extend the working lifetime of an AA battery and even make MEMS power supply feasible.