Hi all,

I want my cake and eat it too!

I need to monitor the battery voltage powering a Pic (16F876) circuit. The voltage swing is around 4.5v to 3.3v. The problem is the batteries are small "AAA" size and the PIC 'sleeps for 99.9% of the time. What is the best way (if any) for the PIC to periodically monitor the battery without the measuring circuit draining the battery all the time?

I thought of switching the battery voltage to a circuit but not sure how the switching transistors voltage drop would affect the measurment, for example with temprature?

Thanks,
Bob