The voltage regulator on the Pico is a switching buck/boost circuit that can accept between 1.8V and 5.5V on VSYS and supplies 3.3V to the RP2040. It is very efficient, so produces little heat. Using an external 3.3V regulator probably wouldn't save you anything.Presumably an internal voltage regulator then feeds 3.3v into the components etc. of the Pico.
The other options is to incorporate a voltage regulator (with capacitors) on my pcb to output 3.3V and then route that to 3V3(OUT) on the Pico.
I was just wondering what the best practice would be for longevity as I'm probably going to order a lot of these pcbs and as far as I'm aware the excess energy is dispersed as heat.
Statistics: Posted by rpdom — Wed May 08, 2024 9:59 am