Perboard Brownout but Works with Wires

Using Arduino Project Guidance
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  1. Thank you for the great feedback.

  2. I think I figured out what was causing the brownout. The motor controller has high impedance on the inputs when both are LOW. I didn't have a pull-up resistor on the pins from the Arduino driving it, so when the Arduino would go LOW on both inputs all of the current was running through the solenoid.

  3. The information from wvmarle is great! I now realize I need to break this circuit down into 2 different parts and get each working. Now that I have the resistance of the solenoid, I need to calculate the capacitance required to boost the circuit (and keep the voltage from dipping too low), the amount of time to charge the capacitor, and the resistance required to keep the voltage regulator from shorting (current limiter).

I think the values are 2,200 uF, 10ohm current limiting resistor, and 20ms to charge the capacitor (9V @ 10ohm @ 2,200 uF). Seems like I tried to charge the cap with 20ms and it wasn't enough, but I'm willing to bet it was how I had it wired. I used this calculator (https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/tools/capacitor-Charge-and-time-constant-calculator/).

Also, the resistor is in parallel, but it needs to be in series as mentioned.

I'm also going to play with the regulator to see if I can lower the voltage to 7 volts since the salesman mentioned 6-9 volts (which is probably right since it runs off of a 9V battery).

Also, I learned that I guess a breadboard doesn't have the same current as a perfboard. It seems like more current can run through a perfboard (is that right?).

I'll post my updates as I move further along. Hopefully, I'll get it working this time. I could have a separate 9V power supply for the solenoid, but I really want a single power supply so that I can more easily replinish/recharge the battery.