– Copied from customer email –
For the SwitchBlox rugged I see the input voltage range is 5V to 60V. Is that 5V an absolute minimum (for example, 4.9V wouldn’t be recommended) or is it 5V?
It’s a little difficult to get specifications on this actually, the main DCDC regulator we use on that board is the TPS54260QDGQRQ1, and so it will be determined by the drop-out voltage of that regulator.
Given that, on our board, this regulator outputs 3.3V, you could likely go as low as 4V on the input voltage and be fine. That’s certainly what we see in lab tests.
Bear in mind that this performance may be affected be temperature, and this just isn’t something we have done qualitative testing on.
But to answer your question, 5V is the nominal input voltage, not the absolutely minimum. For safety, 5V ± 10% is probably a safe margin.