Kind of a long question but.... I am basically trying use the GPIO ports to power something anywhere from 8-9 volts. The kicker is I wanted to use the GPIO ports to switch between specific devices and power them one at a time through some code I have to write. However, I know the Arduino outputs around 3.3 volts(the GPIO ports) I believe, so to solve that my thought process was to design a circuit where I could use the GPIO ports to supply that 3 volts when the pin is "high" where it would then go through the converter to make it 9 volts. I understand the Arduino is not regulated for this high voltage but was researching ways to protect it. I guess that brings me back to my question, is this a feasible way to control 12-13 different devices all at different times using a converter with the GPIO ports?
Welcome to the forum
None of the Arduino outputs should be considered to be a source of power for anything other than sensors and even then the current supplied should be kept to a minimum
You could, of course, use a GPIO pin to switch a MOSFET that turned on an external power supply to provide power to a device.
I see what you are saying. The only downside to that would be the size. I was hoping this would be a handheld device where it could be plugged in and out from the devices. Connecting an external power supply, I feel, would be more difficult. Any other ideas I'm pretty stumped.
was going to make a 3-D printed housing for the arduino and connecting pins
What are your devices? Make a drawing of how you see your setup. Is power the only thing that 'connects' the arduino to the devices or is there data involved as well?
My devices are LEDs. That's as far as I can share as my company has patents that are pending for these specific devices. The only thing I need is power, there is no data involved since this is only testing our LEDs. They are connected by just a cathode pad and an anode pad. I will provide a drawing of how I see it in a little!
Which Arduino board are you planning to use and how do you plan to power it ?
I was wrong here as well on the PDF manual is says I/O voltage is 5V. The Mega 2560 and was going to have the on board power supply connector plugged in to a power supply we have just by a cable.
The "regular" Arduino runs from 5V and the I/O pins put-out approximately 5V withno-load or a low-current load. Of course, if you are using a 3.3V Arduino you'll only get about 3V out.
You didn't say how much current your "devices" need.
Once you have higher voltage (and/or current) available, there are driver chips that can "boost" the voltage (and/or current) from an I/O pin. One chip that comes to mind is the ULN2003 which has 7 drivers. (It's kind-of an old chip and there are newer chips which might be better.) Of course you'd need two of those.
You can geta DC-DC converter to step-up your power supply voltage so you don't need two separate power supplies.
Or, you can use a 9V power supply and use the Arduino's on-board regulator to power the Arduino. It's usually better to step-down than to step-up. A separate switch-mode voltage regulator is more efficient, but it takes space and adds cost.
Note that power is calculated as Voltage X Current and of course all of the power/energy has to come from the power supply (plus some allowance for inefficiency). So for example, if your all of your devices combined require 9V at 1A, the 5V supply will have to supply about 2 Amps into the DC-DC step-up converter.
If you are worried about the size then why use such a large board when smaller ones are available ?
You are actually spot on with the 9V 1A. I was thinking along the DC-DC step up converter lines. I am not familiar with the on board regulator is there any resources you can point me to to understand that?
Because I have 12-13 LED's to individually control, therefore, was going to utilize more pins than what the UNO had to offer. If there are other boards I would love to check them out!
Never mind, I just checked and the UNO has 14 but says 6 provide PWM.
Do you need PWM? Not from your earlier description.
And the UNO has digital 20 io pins, not 14. You can use the analog inputs as digital pins.
For a more permanent setup, I suggest a Nano.
I do not need PWM. I did not know they could be used for both that actually helps a bunch, thanks a lot!
I am a student so I'm still learning all the possibilities of attacking this problem but would love to learn more about how I could go about this.
You should be able to share simple LED drive circuits, as those are ubiquitous in the public domain and so are not in themselves, patent-able. I doubt that your employer could pursue patents on LED technology (if they were, I doubt that your task would not be given to a student who posts on forums for help). Also, pending patents are essentially powerless.
It still doesn't help for me to share the drive circuit? All I need is 9V 1A and was wondering if it would be possible to power it sequentially with an Arudinos GPIO's. I think your thinking they gave me some crazy task when in reality I am providing power to the board for our spectrometer to read what LED's have defects. You don't have to be arrogant on a forum. Guess I just wont post on forums anymore.
The answer is no, so your time on the forum was not wasted.
Have a nice life!
There is no one drive circuit. It always depends on the load. It isn't arrogant to expect details of the application, to facilitate useful answers to a question like this.
Often, a simple BJT or MOSFET transistor will do the job. That occupies a really tiny area of PCB real estate.