[sigkill]

Ah got it. Thanks. I didn't think power would play a significant role, but if it does then I can see why.

[benjamincburns]

It all depends. Are you running off batteries, or wall power? Does your system have idle time that it can take advantage of for power savings? Were the boards in question designed with features to allow for low-power sleep, etc? Are you working with analog? Do your boards have low noise supplies, or do they expect a low noise input source? Are you doing any high current or high voltage switching? Is power-coupled noise an issue? Are we doing any switching of mains power? Is safety an issue? Should we use isolated supplies? If so, how much isolation do we need?

Software folks, myself included, tend to drastically underestimate the complexity of power design...

[vonmoltke]

There is a reason an entire branch of electrical engineering is devoted to it. A branch I am considering going back to.