Powering Skywriter with 5V

Hi there,

From the datasheet I see, that the Skywriter is powered by 3.3V via VCC - that works nice on an Arduino Nano. Because of reasons I am switching to the Pro Micro which in my case runs on 5V and there is no additional 3V supply.

Is VCC regulated onboard the Skywriter and it is safe to run it on 5V? Or should I use a voltage divider first?

I found in the forum, that someone is running the sensor on 5V, but I am curious whether that is out of specs, or not.

Best regards,
Frederik

The Skywriter ( full sized ) has an onboard 3.3v low dropout regulator, so it’ll work with either a 5V or a 3.3V power supply. All of the data lines are level shifted, so they’ll also be fine.

So, yes, it’s in specs because it’s always going through a 3.3V regulator. When you power it at 3.3V it’s actually running the chip even lower! ( which is still in spec )

Thanks for the quick response!

Stupid me: I should have just checked on the back of the PCB, where it clearly states VCC 3.3V - 6V
Best regards, Frederik

P.S: I just can not state enough, how in love I am with the Skywriter right now! I wrote a small demo in Processing, using the Skywriter as input device and navigation feels so natural :D

Do you have that P5 code handy? Processing newbie, here. Though it’s clear that the IDE supports GPIO, it’s not that clear how things can be set up without the library.