Newbie - Which board do I need?

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
1

Hi,

I have been programming software for 12 years, but not anything towards electronics... I now have a project where I have 12 magnetic valves, with a 12V input. I need to turn power on and off on each indivudual valve, using the 12V input as the power source.

I have been looking at the Arduino Duemilanove, but not sure if I can manage to monitor 12 units indvidually, usning only one input power source? Perhpas I need some sort of board to connect to this unit??

Any tips would be very helpful!

::slight_smile:

2

yea no mcu is going to handle large loads, so as far as the arduino goes anything that suits your fancy

there are some motor shields and some relay shields, some decide to make their own interfaces (like me!) and its not super hard

as far as 1 input power source yea you can feed an arduino 12 volts, the 7805 can handle it, so you would have 1 wall connection but wired to 2 points

3

Thank you for your reply, but I am affraid I will need some more details :slight_smile: Could you send links to products and pictures please?

Thanks! :sunglasses:

4

Check the playground for info on hooking up relays and solenoids, these have similar requirements as your valves.

Things like relays, solenoids, and magnetic valves are often reffered to as "high current loads" because they require much more current to operae than you can draw from an Arduino pin. This means that you need extra circutry to drive them, frequently some powerfull transistors and diodes to protect against back emf spikes.