Don Foreman wrote:
On 16 Nov 2004 23:49:22 GMT, Ian Stirling
wrote:



Micros are so cheap low power and small nowadays, that even running them
all the time on an AA cell will not noticably degrade the shelf life for
many technologies. (lithium excluded)

You needn't exclude lithium in that assertion.

It depends.
A 20 year life (retaining 50% capacity is quite likely).
Say 3000mAh for a Lithium AA cell, that's 75mAh a year, to in addition
drain it completely.
So, say 30mAh a year, or 3uA.
Many micros will use much higher currents than this, especially including
a voltage conversion.