Hello, I'm looking to get two independent voltage sources from a single 9 V battery. This would be for the case where two stages of a circuit can't have the same source, but the whole thing needs to run off one battery. Any ideas on this would be terrific. Thanks!

 

If they can't share the same ground point, then you will need an input-to-output isolated DC-DC converter, such as a flyback type, that contains a transformer.

Edit: How much current is required by each circuit?

 

"Two stages of the sames circuit", sounds to me like one supply source would handle this. You did say it's the same circuit. Right? Maybe if we could see the circuit it could be helpful.

 

You could always use battery adapters, the kind you would use for D cells or whatever.

If you are wanting to start with a 9VDC source then other ways of doing it would prevail.

 

I recently came up with, what I thought, was a neat solution to this problem.

A friend required a 3v battery to produce +5v (can you guess why!?).

I hooked a MAX232 chip up and used the charge-pumped +/- 9v. Worked like a charm - and they're pretty popular. You can also use a decent amount of current before you run into problems.

Have fun

Edit: Before someone quotes the Vsupply(min) on the max232 datasheet - I tested it and it worked down to around +2v; surprisingly.

 

Before someone quotes the Vsupply(min) on the max232 datasheet - I tested it and it worked down to around +2v; surprisingly.

Abusing parts like this is okay for hobbyist type projects -- hell, it's part of the fun!

Just never lose sight of the fact that it worked on the one you tested. It might work on 99.9% or it might only work on 0.1% and you just got lucky.

Having said that, most parts will work within performance spec for quite a bit outside of their recommended operating conditions -- it's the only way the manufacturers can guard against process and environmental variations. On the other hand, high-volume commodity parts are highly optimized, which in part means that they have a target for how many will not meet spec outside the recommended operating conditions and the circuit is designed not to outperform that goal by very much.

 

Thanks for all the ideas! I'm going to take a closer look at the design and see what might work best.