How Do You Power the Digispark?

[Feltpad]

I have been working with the Arduino on and off for 2 years now and can do all the basics, but I have never done any soldering or anything like that. I see the Digispark has holes (are these called through-holes?) and am unclear about how I would hook up a power source, or what power source would be acceptable.

So really I have several questions:
1. How do I work with / connect things to the holes on the Digispark?
2. What kind of power source would work / is acceptable for the Digispark?
3.  Is the 5v hole an output?
4. Do I power the Digispark through the VIN hole?
5. What is VIN?

[MichaelMeissner]

I imagine most people will power the digispark with USB or something that provides 5v of power through the USB port.  For example, I have an external battery meant for charging cell phones, that has two USB 5v ports.  I can plug my UNO into one port, and use the other port for another device.  I\'m anticipating using this for the digispark.

I\'ve also seen batteries out there with 5v on one output port, and 9/12v on another that might be useful for powering larger motors.  I have one project that wants to do remote video for a camera, and use the Arduino for control.  The common remote video support uses 12 volts because it is designed for use as a car backup monitor, and cars use 12v as their standard power.

[Dennis]

Digispark will come with headers similar to your Arduino.

[sparr]

You can power the digispark with the USB port, or by wiring your 5V power supply or battery to the 5V and GND pins, or by wiring a higher (or lower, maybe?) voltage power supply to the VIN and GND pins.

PS: If you didn\'t know, you can do this with Arduino too. Instead of powering from USB or from the barrel plug, you can wire directly to the VCC or VIN and GND headers on the board.

[a1k0n]

From the pictures it looks like there\'s a 7805 regulator on the board, and presumably VIN feeds into that, which means you need to power it with like 7V or more (I\'m not sure what the dropout voltage is on the particular one they\'re using).  There\'s also a boost converter shield available on the order page, which would (I believe) let you power it more efficiently from a battery or two.

[sparr]

a1k0n is correct. If you have 5V, you wire it to the 5V pin. If you have 7-35V, you wire it to the VIN pin. If you have 1.2-4.5V, you wire it into the boost shield.

[jim123e]

yep, I think we are all looking for a schematic.  I did look up the spec on the chip on the digispark, attiny85-20 , the 20 stands for 20mhz and the chip can be powered with 2.7 to 5.5v.  Of course you need to apply that voltage directly to the chip\'s pin 8

[Bluebie]

I think the digispark fuses are configured to turn off the spark if the power supply on 5v pin drops below 4.3v. While the attiny85-20 can run on 2.7-5.5v happily, the high clock speed of the digispark (16-16.5mhz) requires more power than that to reliably operate.

[Jay]

Erik said this might be a good place to let everyone know there's a new 3.3v / 5v power supply that runs on 2 AA batteries.  If you're looking at this in July 2014, they are still taking pre-orders on  Kickstarter. http://kck.st/1pICfaX

[digistump]

Erik said this might be a good place to let everyone know there's a new 3.3v / 5v power supply that runs on 2 AA batteries.  If you're looking at this in July 2014, they are still taking pre-orders on  Kickstarter. http://kck.st/1pICfaX

Jay - glad you joined us here - please consider starting your own thread and giving some details about your project!

[dougal]

If I didn't already have least 8 different step-up/step-down boards, I'd be in!