Powering Uno and Servo shield

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micha3l
 
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Powering Uno and Servo shield

Post by micha3l »

I'm building a little hexapod using an Arduino R3 with the Adafruit 16-channel servo shield. I want the bot to be autonomous, so regarding battery power: I read that the Arduino is only really happy with at least 7 volts, which is about the max voltage for the SG90 servos that I'll be using. Is it ok to power the Arduino with a 9v battery thru the power jack, and power the servo shield with four AA batteries thru the terminal block? And do I need to somehow tie the grounds together, or does the shield do this sufficiently?

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Powering Uno and Servo shield

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

In reality, the Arduino runs on 5v. But the on-board voltage regulator need a couple of volts of headroom to regulate reliably. Hence the 7v minimum for powering via the DC jack. But, if you have a regulated 5v source to start with, you can power the Arduino with that via the USB port.

That said, there are other good reasons to power your servos separately. Servos generate a lot of electrical noise which can disrupt normal operation of the Arduino. So your dual powering idea will do a good job of isolating them.

The shield takes care of tying the grounds together, so you don't need to worry about that.

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