I'm looking to connect multiple servos to a single power supply as the Arduino board can only really handle up to two (I think).
If I have 3 servos, I can just twist the wires together with the power supply wire, and then twist and connect all the grounds (plus the Arduino's). That works fine.
But what if I want to power 10, or 20, or 30 servos. Twisting the wires isn't really practical. How do you achieve this properly? What do they do in professional electrical set ups to achieve this?
Is this what a busbar is for? You power one big plate of metal and then connect all the loads to that plate?
the Arduino board can only really handle up to two (I think).
Powered from the Arduino’s 5V connector it can support none, because it can not handle the start up surge.
But what if I want to power 10, or 20, or 30 servos. Twisting the wires isn't really practical.
Twisting wires together is not even an option for two let alone 10 or more.
What you do is to solder the wires to a strip board, for each servo you put a 0.1 uF ceramic capacitor across each one, along with at least a 47uF polarised capacitor. This is to help to reduce the electrical noise. You reinforce the copper track of the strip board with some 24AWG tinned copper wire soldered over it so it will increase the current capability.
You do this for both the + and - connections to the power board. Finally you solder a wire from the - connector to a pin header which you plug into the Arduino’s GND socket.
Have a look at Adafruit's 16-channel servo board (clones on ebay).
Several boards can be daisy-chained, and controlled by the two-wire I2C bus of the Arduino.
Leo..