2

I have been working on a project where I will be powering an Arduino and some LED light strips (2 x 3 Meter strips w/ 30 LEDs per meter). I am powering all of it from a 5v 10amp power supply.

Currently I have split the power cable and have it running to the board and the LED's in separate runs.

As I move from a breadboard to a more permanent proto-board, it would be great to add a barrel connector onto the proto-board and just have a single plugin for power so I can easily disconnect it.

Will this cause any issues if all of the power comes from the proto-board? Thanks!

Improve this question
3
  • Please provide information about how many LEDs, how long the light strips, and/or the measured current. Your supply can provide 10A, but that has little bearing on what is actually drawn by the system.
    – jose can u c
    Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 13:20
  • @Tyler Pearce What LED strip type are you using?
    – MatsK
    Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 14:32
  • They are WS2812b/Neopixel strips. 2 x 3 Meter strips w/ 30 LEDs per meter
    – Tyler Pearce
    Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 15:13

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
1

No, it's not practical do to that with protoboard of any form.

There are two reasons for this:

  1. Barrel jacks are not rated for 10A - I think the most powerful I have seen is 3A.
  2. To handle 10A over (for example) 6 inches of track you would require tracks roughly 8mm wide at 1oz copper. No protoboard provides such tracks.

Even if you're only using half the capacity of your power supply (5A) you still exceed a barrel jack, and would need traces about 3mm wide.

Improve this answer
1

A common way to solve this is to solder a wire onto the tracks on the proto-board.

Improve this answer
0

There is no problem to have your power source coming from your protoboard to supply your arduino since your protoboard can gives to your arduino one of these possibilities explained here.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.