9V power supply and voltage regulator the right way to go?

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

I'm working on a project and I'm wondering if I'm powering it correctly. I've never powered anything with a supply other than the Arduino regulated 5V.

My project is a wifi enabled LED light setup. I'm using an Arduino Micro, Adafruit CC3000 breakout board and 25 Adafruit Neopixels. The pixels require 5V and each one draws 20mA average and 60mA peak at full white.

If I want to use one power supply, does it make the most sense to use a 9V supply for the Micro and then use a voltage regulator like an LM317 (or LM350 if I decide to add more pixels) to get 5V for the LEDs? Is there a simpler solution?

Here is my current plan. Please let me know if I have anything hooked up incorrectly! Thanks for reading!!

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2

If you don't need the 9V use 5 volts.
Lots of 5 volt supplies on the web.

3

Thanks for the reply. My hope was to wire up a board and power the Micro (suggested 7-12V) and the pixels (5V) with the same power supply.

4

I have not used a micro but, you may be able to connect an external 5 volt power supply to the +5 volt pin on the micro.
This way you would only need the one supply.
(At least you could connect it to the 5 volt USB +5 volt line, with no connection to a computer of course.)

Perhaps others know if you can do this.

EDIT:
"5V pin. The regulated power supply used to power the microcontroller and other components on the board. This can come either from VIN via an on-board regulator, or be supplied by USB or another regulated 5V supply."

5

I would use a 5V wallwart to power everything. Make a splitter cable and connect to the 5V pin on the power header.
Or: Use a USB wallwart adapter, and connect to the USB connector for power.
Cut one cable end off to power the neopixels.
http://www.amazon.com/HDE-4-Port-Travel-Adapter-Charger/dp/B009G072WO/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1392821684&sr=8-12&keywords=usb+charger

6

Thank you, guys. I didn't realize I could supply power to the 5V pin. That is way simpler approach. Thanks again!