Capacitor smoothing question

Author	Message
twofingers Guru Joined: 02/06/2014 Location: Germany Posts: 1752	Posted: 11:26am 10 Mar 2025         Mixtel90 said   For lithium cells you won't be far off with a resistor, Michael. You are only working over about a 1V range from fully charged to the 3V cut-off point. No good for primary cells. ... Hi Mick, I'm sure I misunderstood you or missed something. Firstly, a 18650 is not a primary cell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_battery) and secondly, billions of devices (smartphones, etc.) work with these power sources and the 1 V difference. As I wrote, I (and Geoff too) published a circuit based on this principle almost ten years ago. They work excellently. The small 2 EUR zb2l3 modules also work in a similar way. I have been measuring my 36V e-bike batteries according to the same principle for many years. You should check your statements. As I said, I suspect a misunderstanding. Regards Michael I wrote above:   Quote   Actually, you only need a Picomite, a logic-level N-MOSFET (like IRL540), a load resistor approx. 18 ohm/1W, 2 * 470k as a voltage divider, 1x 100k and 1x 100nF. Edited 2025-03-10 21:49 by twofingers