Does reset affect battery life?

I made a book with audio similar to the Foxonix Instructable . In addition to the forward and back buttons, I added a reset button on top of the styrene box, so you could always just start over at the beginning.

In order to keep the audio from going off whenever the forward/back buttons are bumped, I was thinking of putting a rubber band around the reset button to keep it engaged, but I'm wondering...will that affect battery life? I wasn't sure if the reset was part of the actual circuit or not.

Thanks,

-eric

Hi Eric:

Generally, you don't want to hold the chip in reset for an extended period of time. This does cause additional current draw from the battery supply. The Project Board also has an LED on it that indicates whether the chip is running or in sleep mode. If the chip is held in reset, this LED will be on and further increase the current draw. Even with that LED removed, holding the chip in reset will draw greater than 200 uA. Nomally, in sleep mode the chip will draw as a little as 1.3 uA.

A better solution would be to add a small ON/OFF slide switch in line with the power supply. This will cut the power to the chip entirely. You could still keep your reset button to restart the program from the beginning, or you could simply cycle the power with the ON/OFF switch which will have the same effect.