Questions tagged [power]
This tag is for questions regarding powering and/or power consumption of Arduino systems.
55
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What are (or how do I use) the power saving options of the Arduino to extend battery life?
For solar & battery powered projects, decreasing power consumption is a necessity.
I know a little bit about using a timer and interrupt to put the microcontroller into sleep when it isn't doing ...
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51
votes
2
answers
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What happens if I power the Arduino with both the USB and external power voltage simultaneously?
I am a new Arduino user. I am not sure whether I can connect both USB and external supply through power adaptor to Arduino simultaneously. Would this burn the controller?
Basically, I want to ...
- 523
3
votes
2
answers
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Setting 10 RGB Strips Independently from Single Arduino
I want to control 10 different 12V RGB LED strips independently from a single Arduino.
As a clarification - I've setup a bunch of NeoPixels and understand how to wire and control them independently. ...
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1
vote
1
answer
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Powering an Arduino with more than 5 V
Last time, when I supplied 12 V from a power supply to the Arduino's 5V pin, it blew up. This time I'm going to use an adapter. Why does an adapter with a 12 V input not blow an Arduino up, ...
- 29
25
votes
1
answer
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ATtiny85: Power consumption vs clock speed
Short and simple: What is the power consumption for an ATtiny85 running at 1 MHz and 8 MHz using the internal clock? Not using any sleep modes.
I have googled a lot and can't find any info on this. I ...
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16
votes
3
answers
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Arduino powering from 9V battery
Yesterday afternoon I have left my Arduino running on a fresh Alkaline 9V battery (+ connected to Vin, - connected to GND). Today morning (16 hours later) the LCD display was no longer visible, and ...
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15
votes
2
answers
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Powering Arduino with Solar Panels
Clearly, an Arduino can be powered with solar panels.
What is the most optimal configuration?
Can you recharge and discharge at the same time?
Is LiPO the best battery cache technology, or is there ...
- 532
8
votes
3
answers
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How to stop Arduino from drawing power through USB
I'm working on an embedded project, where I use arduinos as a "sensor shield" for RaspberryPi (I have model B).
The problem is, that the RaspberryPi's USB port is not powerfull enough to drive WiFi ...
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8
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2
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I fried the AMS1117 voltage regulator on my Arduino Clone, is this the cause?
I had the 12V DC power jack plugged-in all the time, and "to make things more exciting" I also plugged-in the "data" USB whenever I had a new sketch to upload. Is this combination a big no-no, or is ...
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5
votes
4
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Power bank turns off spontaneously
I currently have a 50,000 mAH USB power bank powering my Arduino Uno and micro servomotor. Unfortunately, my power bank has an automatic shutoff and shuts off after 2 hrs of runtime (I need 16 hrs for ...
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2
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Arduino Power - DC adapter
I have a 12V 2.5 ampere Dc adapter.Can i use it to power arduino uno board?
It says on the arduino website that i can use 9-12V and upto 1 ampere. I am concerned with current limit here..
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4
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1
answer
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How to switch an external circuit with Arduino?
I have an object with a series of led and I want to turn on and off these leds from my Arduino. The input of the LED circuit is 24v DC 100mA.
What I've done is the following:
I've cut a wire of this ...
- 143
2
votes
2
answers
3k
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Is supplying 5V from both external 5V and USB harmful?
I have an arduino nano which is powered through unregulated 5V (pin 27). For debugging purpose, I'd like to connect the USB port to my computer in order to use the Serial.Print function. The external ...
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3
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Arduino Uno with 6x 5V solenoids + 9V battery - Not enough power?
I have 6 5V solenoids connected to an Arduino Uno, each of them with a TIP120 transistor, diode and resistor. Exactly like https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/solenoid-control-with-arduino.html ...
- 111
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5
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Arduino Mega and other modules power consumption
I have an Arduino Mega 2560 to which I have connected:
Arduino GSM Shield 2
Waveshare 10 DOF IMU sensor
Waveshare NEO-7M-C (B) GPS module
HC-05 ZS040 Bluetooth module
I am feeding my Arduino a 12V ...
- 133
1
vote
1
answer
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How to assign an interrupt to a button press with an ATtiny? (interrupt not fired with my code)
(Here is finally a solution).
I'm using the following code on a ATtiny45 to assign an interrupt to a button press (pin #7, PB2, INT0). However the LED doesn't blink when the button is pressed, as if ...
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-1
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2
answers
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What is VREF pin?
Was searching for some help on connecting Flir camera w/ Lepton board to arduino and found this thread
for power you can reroute the 3-5V to the VREF pin, then you have a nice clean solution.
You ...
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33
votes
14
answers
57k
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Most compact method of powering Arduino from wall socket
There are a lot of methods to power an Arduino from a large range of voltages:
USB cable from PC or from a phone charger or an USB hub
step down converters
step up converters
switching power supply
...
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20
votes
6
answers
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Powering Arduino with car batteries
Presumably, one powers an Arduino board with car batteries for long-term operation away from the power grid.
How can this be done, and what are the most (1) economic, and (2) reliable ways to do this?...
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19
votes
4
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What is the maximum power consumption of the Arduino Nano 3.0?
What is the maximum power consumption (in mW) of the Arduino Nano 3.0, when it is running in its default state (at 16MHz, no LEDs removed) and powered by an external regulated 5V supply so it bypasses ...
- 1,349
15
votes
3
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Why is the regulator very hot?
We have an LED strip connected to output 6 and is powered by the Uno board itself. Shouldn't be drawing too much current, only have 10 elements on the LED strip. While this LED strip is connected to ...
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8
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1
answer
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How to stop uno from running program when powered on?
Does anyone know how to prevent the Uno from running the last program when it's powered on?
Many times I have changed hardware and wiring without clearing the program first. Then when I power it on ...
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6
votes
1
answer
11k
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How to optimise TX power for ESP8266?
I have multiple ESP8266 units programmed using Arduino SDK and I would like each one of them to adjust the transmission power to lower the power requirements.
Arduino allows setting the TX power of ...
- 339
6
votes
3
answers
7k
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How to deep sleep ATtiny/ATmega (to run for years with batteries) but still detect a button press?
Question (TL;DR): what is the optimal method to deep sleep (to run an ATtiny45 or ATmega on batteries for 1+ year) but still be able to detect a button press? Is it possible to deep sleep until a ...
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5
votes
1
answer
128
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Converting a standard setup/loop sketch to a low power application?
Suppose I have a typical setup/loop style sketch, such as this one which turns on an LED when a button is pressed.
How do I modify this so that it enters low power mode, awakes on the button press, ...
- 539
5
votes
4
answers
10k
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Two arduinos one power source
I was surprised that this question had no answer on Stack Exchange and I can't find much about it elsewhere so, in the hopes that it will be useful to people other than myself, I'd like to ask:
How ...
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4
votes
4
answers
406
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Send out a short signal every 10 seconds to an arduino
In order to reduce power consumption, I want to resume my Arduino from standby mode every 10 seconds. For this a hardware interrupt is necessary.
Is there such a device that can create a quick ...
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3
votes
2
answers
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Digispark clone not recognised when plugged in
When I plug in my digispark clone the computer doesn't make any sounds or some kind of acknowledgement that it has been plugged in. Anyone know why this may be or is it just a dodgy clone?
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2
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Low Power Pin Change Detection (ATtiny)
I want to use an ATtiny as data logger for the opening and closing of a door/window. For that I am using a reed-switch. Since I want to run it from a 3V coin battery, long term power consumption is ...
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3
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2
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3k
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Can I safely connect my original Arduino Uno to a 19V adapter?
I have an original Arduino Uno R3. According to the specifications the recommended input voltage is 7 to 12 Volt.
However, I have a laptop adapter of 19V that I want to use to power my arduino ...
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2
votes
4
answers
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Power suply for MicroSD card breakout board
I'm developing a project and I need to connect to my Arduino Mini with a SD card breakout board. The problem is that I can't plug it directly to the Arduino since it is already powering some sensors ...
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2
votes
1
answer
348
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NodeMCU Power supply
I got a question about externally powering my NodeMCU V3. It has an onboard voltage regulator (3v3) which breaks out to 3 header pins. Now I want to power 3v3 from an external board. Can I supply 3v3 ...
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2
votes
0
answers
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LEDs interfering with analog sound detection
My project is a sound reactive LED display on an Arduino Nano. There are 112 WS2811s in series connected to 5v, Gnd and D5 via 220ohm resistor.
I have a Keyes style sound detection module that has an ...
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2
votes
2
answers
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Deviation of power consumption between datasheet and real world?
According to the Atmega328P-PU Datasheet (side: 589) the current consumption of the microcontroller should be around 9.5mA (at 16MHz and 5V).
But I measured 15mA. (Nick Gammon who did some pretty good ...
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2
answers
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On the Uno, why does VIN require 7-12 volts and the USB only 5 volts?
I'm just wondering why the VIN would require 7-12 volts when the USB port itself only requires 5 volts? What happens if you power an Uno on VIN with 5 volts?
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2
votes
1
answer
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Powering an Arduino UNO through 5V
I have a bench supply which I can use to power a breadboard at 5 V. Is it a bad idea to power the the Arduino by going directly to the 5 V pin? It sounds like both this method, and the USB are ...
- 445
2
votes
1
answer
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"tamper" circuit of a reed switch: can I connect the two wires to an INPUT and an OUTPUT pin?
While working for the automation side of my new house, I'm currently in the process of installing several reed switches on top of external doors and windows.
Even if this could be used as a "...
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2
votes
1
answer
361
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Does a moisture sensor need warm-up time?
I am trying to use a moisture sensor to identify the moisture value of my plants. (As every one does.)
The sensor was connected to VCC all the time and my battery goes empty after a short time. So I ...
2
votes
1
answer
704
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Waking up async the Arduino while it's sleeping periodically [duplicate]
I´m using LowPower.h and PinChangeInt.h libraries to put my Arduino into the sleep mode every 8 seconds and then it wakes up, modifies a counter and it goes to sleep again, but also I need to wake it ...
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1
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Wemos D1 doesnt drive Relay [closed]
I recently bought a Wemos D1 board and tried to connect a relay and test its connection.
I got an example server from here and executed. I connected D5 to a Relay's data and 5v and GND from Wemos ...
1
vote
1
answer
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How to make battery last for months?
I have a simple circuit: detect that a person is walking towards the circuit (with HC-SR04), measure distance, light diodes (a wave effect) according to that distance – the closer, the faster the led ...
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1
vote
2
answers
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Directly powering a single 32x16 RGB LED matrix (without external PSU)
All the guides I've found suggest to use an external PSU to power an RGB matrix like this.
However I know it is possible to blink the LEDs at high rates (eg. 2ms) and still give the impression to the ...
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vote
2
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NodeMCU power consumption measurement and DeepSleep
I'm working on a project using a nodeMCU using a ICR14500(3.7V and 700mAh) battery and I'm experienced some issues when I try to estimate the total current consumption. Firstly I experienced some ...
- 129
1
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3
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2k
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Analog input draws current when Arduino is turned off
I am using a Arduino Pro Micro from SparkFun (similar to Arduino Leonardo, cpu: Atmega 32u4). It has a analog input: A0, which I use to keep track of the battery voltage in my battery powered project (...
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1
vote
3
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726
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How come my transistor doesn't work?
I have a TIP 120 to 229 NON 60V 5A transistor
I'm trying to use it to switch an electro magnet. Using the blink example to test it out:
// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power ...
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0
votes
2
answers
630
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Pro Mini 5v with Adafruit motor shield v1 power sharing problems
I am trying to convert a RC car into autonomous car using Arduino Pro Mini 5v 16 Mhz. I have done this with UNO and Adafruit motor shield 1.0 with 4 gear motors and one micro servo for mounting range ...
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0
votes
1
answer
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How can i provide enough power on an UNO to use the HC-12 wireless module?
Scenario: The Uno is being powered by USB for programming, and the HC-12 wireless communications module is wired correctly. But it will not work.
In reading through the web literature, it is ...
- 1,155
0
votes
1
answer
709
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External power supply?
I have a project where I'm looking to power 120 RGB LEDs in a strip (WS2812B).
Obviously an Arduino Micro cannot supply this amount of current so I'm looking to use an external 5V/4A switching power ...
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0
votes
1
answer
909
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Arduino works bad when powered by 9V battery
At first I am sorry for my bad English.
I am making robot which can do a lot of things...
If I connect arduino on my robot with PC via USB, the robot works properly. If I use external power supply (...
- 151
0
votes
1
answer
902
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Use lowpower-libary and still use serial connection and other things
I managed to get the LowPower libary working on my Arduino Micro. This code works perfectly:
#include <LowPower.h>
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
...
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