5v required or can it run on lower?

[Pesoen]

i have considered buying one of these for an ipod upgrade i am working on, where i will the 30-pin connector for power and line out, making a simple, self contained unit for the ipod, but mounting it internally, the problem i am facing is the 30-pin connector(as far as i can read online) only give 3.3v. so i wonder if it will work with 3.3v or even less, or if it will only work with 5v.

if it only works with 5v i need to step up the voltage, taking up more space inside, meaning i can mount a smaller battery than i would like. but if it works with 3.3v or lower, i can solder it directly onto the 30 pin, making a really small package inside the ipod for bluetooth, with a connection outside the metal casing for the signal.

[Mark-MDO47]

I don't know. Why not try it? a google of KCX_BT_EMITTER shows multiple sources less than $10. I have not tried it with less than 5V.

[Pesoen]

well i was just hoping you might know, but gonna order a few, could use them in a few projects.

[Mark-MDO47]

Sorry, I just have no idea on this one.
I have found these parts to work very well for the purposes of my little hobby projects, but haven't needed to work within commercial constraints with them so haven't tried to do some of the things like your question or the one from fahmij8 at #2
Good luck; I will be interested to hear what you find.

[Pesoen]

Will post my results here for my testing, will try to go as low as possible with power, until it stops working and note the voltage. might also try and see how high it can go, will be useful to know if it can handle 12v for instance, though I doubt that part.

[DrJapan]

I will test tomorrow.

[DrJapan]

Hello!

After getting the KCX_BT_EMITTER V1.7 hooked up to the power source, of my iPod classic, I can report, that at 3.3V there is no visible activity.

At 3.8V, there was some LED activity, but the emitter wouldn't pair with any device.

With 5V, the emitter worked with no issues.

Looks like, for me, it's back to the drawing board.

I need to find a Bluetooth Emitter that functions with a 3.8V input.

[Mark-MDO47]

There are some Step Up Power Module Voltage Boost Converters. Searching on Amazon finds some possibilities, although many cost as much or more than the KCX_BT_EMITTER.
I tend to use 5V in my projects since there are good choices for multi-color addressable LEDs at that voltage.

[jmsunseri]

I was wondering if you could program an ESP32 module to work just like this emitter which would run on 3.3v. It has all the bluetooth capabilities. Would it need to manipulate the data in some way before sending it to a bluetooth sink?

[Mark-MDO47]

I understand your desire to use the same voltage for the entire system. I have never tried to run the KCX_BT_EMITTER on anything other than +5V. You might try it, but I have not had good luck running at the wrong voltage for other modules.
If you can have a dual-voltage system, I have had good luck converting 3.xVolt ESP32 outputs to 5Volt using a SN74HCT125N 3-state Buffer, even though I don't think this part was designed for this purpose. There are four drivers on this one chip.
I use the DIP version of the chip and got it from here: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/SN74HCT125N/376860
Good luck!