CR2032 Replacement Board

I both love and hate the ubiquitous CR2032 coin cell. It’s such a great package that is a “just enough” power option for many small projects. The CR2032 is a mainstay of #badgelife and the pulsing heart of many a small IoT node, however, there must be an awful lot of them in landfill sites and we should try and reduce that as much as possible.

One great option could be this CR2032 Adapter. It’s a neat little design,  that emulates a CR2032 but is a wired solution. It features an onboard surface mount LM1117 so if this adapter is fed a 5V supply it happily supplies a nice regulated 3V3. We can imagine this would be really useful for static displays of projects needing a long power supply perhaps from a USB power bank.  In fact, the project creator mentions in the product listing that they were asked to make a ‘desk mounted’ version of the Phillips Hue dimmer control units, originally powered by a CR2032. We can imagine this making a very neat job to convert them to a continuous supply.

The CR2032 adapter is supplied fully assembled with you only having to solder wires to the large and clearly labelled plus and minus pads. If you’ve got some devices that seem to chew through CR2032 batteries, consider giving this little device a try!