Your power supply problems just got SOLVED! This little circuit board may look tiny but inside is a high efficiency DC/DC stepdown converter which can output up to 3 Amp at 5V without the need of any heatsink or forced cooling. (It does get a bit toasty at 3A though) UBEC stands for universal battery eliminator circuit and this UBEC is designed to replace a 5V supply in RC planes and ‘copters but its also great for any kind of microcontroller or electronics project that runs off of 5V. We tried a half dozen different ‘BECs and found this one to be the best in terms of range and stability. You can check the technical tab for the analysis of input/output range and current draw.

To use connect 6V up to 16V (recommended) to the INside wires and 5V will be generated on the OUTside wires. You’ll get 5V (+5%) regulated output from higher voltage input. 3A output current 5A peak if you’re trying to draw 3A you’ll need to give it a little more than 6V though 7V works well. The UBEC has built in filter capacitors on the input and output but its a switching supply so its a little noisy compared to a linear regulator.