Battery Holder - 4xAA to Barrel Jack Connector

This is a simple 4 cell AA battery holder. The 5 inch cable is terminated with a standard 5.5x2.1mm, center positive barrel jack connector.

The connector mates with the barrel jack on the Arduino (among a number of other products) allowing you to easily make your project battery powered.

Note: the average voltage regulator has about 1V of dropout (but can vary greatly). This pack, with normal alkaline batteries, will output ~5.5V causing a normal 5V board to run at around 4 to 4.5V. This depends a lot of what board and processor you are using with the battery pack. Please consult yer datasheet.

Battery Holder - 4xAA to Barrel Jack Connector Product Help and Resources

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If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.

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Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

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  • someotherguy / about 9 years ago / 1

    Try using a double-sided sticky pad.

  • someotherguy / about 9 years ago / 1

    I have not been able to find one that will yet. The holes are right up against the wall!

  • Cool Cap Engineer2 / about 13 years ago / 1

    Does anyone know the best flat head screw to use to secure this?

  • esklar81 / about 13 years ago / 1

    The nominal voltage of a NiMH cell is 1.2 V. Four of those in series produce a nominal 4.8 V. The minimum supply voltage for a Duemilanove is 6 V, the minimum recommended supply voltage is 7 V. The minimum operating voltage for an Arduino Pro is either 3.35 V or 5 V, depending on the uProc nominal voltage.
    This battery holder is probably suitable for a nominal 3.3 V device, but...
    Wouldn't six (or, at least, 5) cells be more useful?
    Eric

    • tiagofumo / about 13 years ago / 1

      well, I will be happy when everything become 3.3v normaly... but till there, they could make this one with double side or something that you coud attach and dettach easily from the arduino back side... or a nice li-ion battery packs giving 7.4v with a barrel jack connector :)
      Or even this 4 AA one in a usb connector :)

    • jimblom / about 13 years ago / 1

      Great point! You're 100% correct, Eric. The 5V regulator on the Arduino has a dropout voltage of ~1V, and there's also a diode on the input line, which drops the voltage another ~0.7V. Plugging this into my Arduino, here's what I got:
      4 pack of slightly used AAs was delivering 5.39V and the voltage at the '5V' pin of the Arduino was 3.64V - just about -1.7V.
      That said, the Arduino was still able to control a 5V 16x2 LCD (if much dimmer and requiring a contrast adjustment).
      Definitely might want to consider a different route if you're project requires exactly 5V.

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