Arduino shuts off and doesn't turn on after couple hours

Question

I use a mega 2560, pir sensor and a SG90 9g Servo motor in my project. Basically while the pir outputs high, the Servo Motor rotates from 0 to 180 degrees.

Here is how everything is wired up:

PIR sensor:

Data: pin 24

Vcc: 5 volt

Gnd: Ground

Servo:

PWM pin: pin 11

Vcc: 5 volt

Ground: ground

The arduino mega has two 5 volt and ground pins, one next to the analog pins and other at tho bottom bar of pin, where pins 22 and up are. I connected the Servo to the first 5v and gnd and the pir to the second.

My power source is my nexus 5 charger(5v 1.8 or 2 A).

My code:

Servo myservo; 

    void setup() {
      myservo.attach(11);  
     pinMode(24, INPUT);
    }

    void loop() {
     if(digitalRead(24) == HIGH){
       myservo.write(0);
       delay(500);
       myservo.write(180);
       delay(500);
     }
    }

All of this works fine for the first ~10 hours. After that the arduino just shuts down. The power led of the arduino isn't lit up. Disconnecting the adapter and reconnecting it or pressing the reset button of the arduino doesn't work. I Have to wait for a couple of minutes with the adapter disconnected and reconnect it. After that it works fine for the next ~10 hours.

Seems like a hardware issue, but I'm not sure what exactly fails and why.

Answer 1

I assume your charger is connecting to the USB port of the Mega2560.

That USB port has a polyfuse (actually a special type of positive-coefficient thermistor) which is normally rated at around 500mA (polyfuses are a bit woolly with their ratings since they are heat based).

If you are drawing near that limit of current the fuse will be gradually heating up. I would think that after 10 hours it may have reached its threshold temperature and thus switches the power off.

Disconnecting the power and allowing it to cool down would then make the board work again.

How can you test it? Well, next time it switches itself off try bypassing the polyfuse (tweezers would be good to do that with) to see if the power LED turns on again.

Answer 2

The power led of the arduino isn't lit up.

The power LED is implemented in hardware, basically, if it's not lit, it won't work.

Find the problems' (power?)source

After the 10h operation, your Arduino isn't on anymore.

Does the power supply still have 5V available at that point? Or does your Arduino's chips get hot or short-circuit the supply?

Exclude as much variables as possible

You don't know what the problem is, it could be:

• The supply
• The Arduino
• The Servo
• The PIR

Try another supply (preferably through the barrel jack, since it's regulated) (The supply may have some "protection" to avoid it being on too long).

Try another Arduino (unlikely?).

Try no servo & pir connected. (They may draw too much current, so the Arduino shuts down or create electrical noise.)

Answer 3

I'm just going to hazard a guess: Your 5v line isn't staying at 5v because of the servo. They draw massive amounts of power quickly, and can wreck a lot of havoc. Many times electronics "kinda" work after voltage drops, but will lock up or glitch eventually. (To get confirmation that this is the problem, monitor your 5v power with an oscilloscope. Set a trigger at 4.5v and try to capture the voltage drops.)

If that is the problem, you need better isolation on your digital power (running the arduino) and your analog power (running the servo.) Two ideas to try (you may need both):

1) Get a big cap (say 100 uF or more), then put it across your power to the arduino. If it's big enough, it will prevent your 5v from sagging. It may be expensive to get a big enough cap.

2) Instead of connecting your servo directly to 5v, put a small resistor (say 10 ohm) between them. Now when he tries to suck all the power, it will get resistance, which will limit the current. The bigger the resistor the better the isolation, but too big will prevent your servo from working. (And may heat up your resistor).