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Can a teensy 3.2 deliver enough power to properly activate multiple servos by chance?

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  • it can provide system voltage of 3.3V to other devices at up to 100mA
    – Gerben
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 16:50
  • Is there anyway to boost it up to 5v? Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 16:58
  • I would just go with a 5v power supply.
    – Gerben
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 20:32

1 Answer 1

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No. You should provide your own regulator or supply for the servos specified voltage.

This might be an original design, or an off-the-shelf "battery eliminator" intended for an R/C vehicle of similar needs.

Note that the teensy regulator's maximum input voltage is fairly low, and may be in the range of what more powerful servos expect, ie, you might be able to run the teensy regulator off of the servo supply.

Be sure to consider the possibility of brownouts - multiple active or stalled servos can consume a lot of power, and if your upstream supply is not "stiff" enough this can result in the voltage dropping low enough that control electronics misoperate or reset - granted that is less likely with the teensy than with a 5v MCU using a regulator with a higher voltage dropout.

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  • If you are running servos from the same supply as the Teensy and the supply is not decoupled enough you could also encounter noise related issues that might affect other parts of your build. In any case, use capacitors to stabilize your power inputs if you are dealing with actuators.
    – Avamander
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 15:35
  • Capacitors only cover very temporary demands - a stalled servo is a demand which can easily last longer than any practical capacitor could cover for. Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 0:37

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