In the PDF for the fez mini it says the 5v out and the Vin are the same pin… If I want to power the Fez off of say a 6V battery source and also have another item that needs a 5v input, is there any way to get 5v out off the mini? I’d like to avoid a separate voltage regulator to feed both if possible.
I don’t own a mini, so I can’t really say any more than what the PDF of the schematic shows.
There is only one regulator, that takes the input voltage of 5v and regulates it down to 3v3 for the CPU. The input looks like it could be a 5v regulated input itself, or the USB (there’s a diode protecting an external power source from supplying back to the USB).
That means that the 5v line on the Mini is able to be used for the other device, you just need to appropriately connect it.
If you want to power by an external source, you would need to supply 5v; If you want to use a higher voltage supply that means you have to create your own regulator circuit to drop that down to 5v, and that then supplies the Mini’s 3v3 regulator and the other device at the same time.
Take a look at schematics for details.
You can power Mini off 6V but you can’t get 5V out.