External Power Supply for my Stuff?

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hi,

I'm running an Arduino Mega with the following Tools:

o) 7" TFT + Shield
o) RTC from Sparkfun
o) IO Expander Port from Sparkfun
o) PH Probe with shield fro mAtlas Scientific
o) 16 Channel Relais Shield (with external 12V supply)
o) Temperature Probe

All components running great (alone). As soon as I connect everything together I'm running out of power.
No difference if I'm running on 12V external Supply or direct on the USB. If running on 12V supply the Voltage regulator gets pretty hot.

So my Idea would be to get a 5V power supply and run all 5V stuff on this external supply. Only connect the Datapins (I2C,..)

Is this a good Idea? Or do I have to use the 5V pins for my devices?

Thanks for your help
mathias

2

Should be a good idea, just make sure you connect the grounds.

edit..... along the lines of the attached pic

external.PNG
external.PNG703×613 3.91 KB

3

Thansk for this hint! Works perfect now. :slight_smile:

4

NatroN:
Thansk for this hint! Works perfect now. :slight_smile:

Great