Is it possible to squeeze 2+ Watts out of a AA cell?

If all things were easily done, 3 watts shouldn't be a problem, but the converter IC's that I know of aren't up to the task. Are their any DC to DC switcher IC's that can make this possible? After all, even 4 watts would be only drawing 3.2 amps (average) from a single NIMH cell; doesn't seem to out there does it? Linear, National, Maxim, OnSemi, and others I've looked at don't make this possible with SOT's or mini 8's. Their one day will be a way and it's manufactures like the one that makes the FENIX L1 that will make it happen.

There are about a million DC/DC converter ICs on Digikey. Are you telling me that none of them will do more than 2 watts from one cell? I'd have to believe there's some way to use a bigger inverter or transistor or whatever's necessary.

I have looked. If it were easily done, I think it would have been done by now. The next big trouble is finding it in a mini package.

Use two boost circuits. That'll do it.

Yup. 2 circuits in parallel. If the cells are up to the task of high current (NiMH) then next it's the limitation of the circuit's input current. Take example I wanted to run a 1000ma to a single luxeon from 2C NiMH. The NiMH can handle whatever I throw at it, but the BadBoy has a max input current of 1.5amps. So the trick is to use 2 BB500's in parallel, each would only pull ~ 1amp input current. So everything is happy!

You are definately thinking along the same lines that I have considered, but a problem still remains. I have used a SOT-23 with an internal switch to give me enough current to drive a 3 watt good from 2 AA's. Unfortunately, I can't find a SOT-23 that will drive anymore than 150mA from 1 cell that uses an internal switch. The next step is to use external switches but I want to modify a FENIX L1, and size of the circuit is very restrictive. If only there were a good SOT-23 with int. switch, then the parallel idea would work no doubt.

What's an SOT?

Try a 14500 lithium ion cell.

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