Accidentally putted voltage into USB port?

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hi, i have some question, theoretically, is there some risk of laptop damage, when i accidentally probably did some wrong connection on my stepper motor shield with Arduino mini board which was connected through USB adapter into my laptop's usb port? I used on that board 9V power adaptor input while all the stuff was connected to my laptop. Already some time ago, and everything is running without problems, no errors, nothing with laptop.. But it is still in my mind, and i am wondering now, are such a connections polarity and voltage safe by laptops usb port? Won't they let the voltage run into port? It may sounds funny but i am amateur and i use for such a projects with extern power adaptor another older laptop where i don't care if he will get knocked down. But this was the only one time i forgot and connected it to my relative brand new laptop and still think if it didn't made some damage on mainboard

Thanks for infos :slight_smile:

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Most computers have protection against voltage on the USB ports.
That said some have better protection than others.

It is possible to KILL the USB ports on a computer with voltage but more often the USB ports will shut down to prevent that until the fault has been fixed / item unplugged.
Then a computer restart will often bring them back to life.

If there is still any issues after the faulty item was disconnected then you may be looking at an expensive repair.

Moral of the story is always to DOUBLE check connections BEFORE you power up and external device.

Bob.

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