DCC / DEC4 to switch transistor?

[ThomasL]

Is it possible to connect DCC / DEC4 to a transistor to turn on / off a part in my circuit? I assume yes, but I just want to make sure.

Or, is there another way to turn on/off a part of my circuit without spending a GPIO pin doing this? I basically want to turn the circuit on when the nRF52 is powered.

[Øyvind Karlsen]

Hi,

EDIT: Turns out I read you question a bit quickly there, sorry for that. You cannot use DCC to power an external piece as it will cause unwanted effects. Depending on timing criteria you can either.

a) Use a GPIO to activate your transistor(strict timing/concurrency requirements)

b) Use the VCC that you are using to power up your chip to also activate the transistor switch(loose timing/concurrency requirements)

Best regards,

Øyvind

[ThomasL]

What is the specs for the DEC4/DCDC-pins? Same as GPIO pins? Output draw of max 5mA? I'll be only connecting one transistor, and currently there's one chip that will be turned on/off based on this design.