Teensy 3.6 + Adafruit ATWINC1500 breakout board

[jpsabo]

I have read the posts here regarding the addition of the Adafruit ATWINC1500 WiFi breakout board to the Teensy 3.6, but as noted on the Adafruit site regarding the power requirements of that board:

“A 3.3V voltage regulator that can handle the 300mA spikes lets you power from 3-5.5VDC.“

Given that the Teensy 3.6 can supply a max of 250 mA at 3.3 volts, should a separate power supply be used for this ATWINC1500 board?

 

[PaulStoffregen]

Short duration 300 mA should be fine. The chip is actually rated for 500 mA, but if you sustain that much current it may overheat because the PCB layers are the only heatsink.

We publish 250 mA on the cards and website because a simple (and conservative) number is much easier to understand than a thermal curve.

 

[jpsabo]

Thank you for the help Paul...much appreciated. I assume using the ATWINC1500 power management features would be a good idea as well, as noted on the Adafruit site:

“If you're using the Arduino WiFi101 library, call this instead to enable automatic sleep: WiFi.lowPowerMode();“

“When this line is added, it lets the WINC1500 know that when nothings going on, shut down unneeded parts. You dont have to manage the power modes, and the power will drop down nearly instantly to about 22mA average (there's still spikes during transmit of course).”