Hello,
having a little trouble with project 5 in the official Arduino starter kit, which involves wiring up a servo.
The potentiometer supplied seems to be way too big, and im not sure how to wire the circuit up to account for this - I guess it must be possible. Or maybe im interpreting the wiring diagram incorrectly. If anyone has any thoughts that would be great. Bear in mind I am new to this.
Have included photo of the wiring diagram, and my potentiometer/ breadboard, so you can see the issue.
You just need to move the potentiometer so that its wiper (center) pin is on the other side of the breadboard's center divider (e.g., place the pins from rows 12 & 14 into column c, and place the pin from row 13 into column f.
Also, I've been told on this forum that is it evidently a cardinal sin to power any DC motor from the 5V-header of the Arduino board... Where did you find that wiring diagram?
Hi @ardant ,
do exactly as posted by @grb !
Here a screenshot from another application
Source: https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Potentiometer-Analog-Input-Tinkercad/
(Scroll down to "Step 5:...")
Their potentiometer seems to have all pins on one side. You have to connect the center divider on the other side of the breadboard, about there where the red arrow appears.
Good luck!
ec2021
Hi thats great, thank you for your help.
The diagrams are all from the arduino projects book that came in the starter kit.
The circuit does include 2 x 100uf capactitors - not sure if that makes any difference to the 5v header supply to servo that you mention.
Thanks, very useful to have the photo to go by 
You are welcome, the most support was given by @grb of course 
Hi @grb ,
you are right the 5V from the board are limited regarding the current. To avoid problems one should use a separate power supply.
On the other hand there are lots of tutorials around that use the Arduino 5V pin to power small servos which don't require much power. e.g.:
https://www.makerguides.com/servo-arduino-tutorial/
I think for the purpose of learning how to use a servo this is acceptable. What is mostly missing is the hint to change this for "real world" applications.
Standard DC motors usually require a (breakout) driver board that provides an input for a separate power supply. Although stepper motors are sometimes shown as directly connected to Arduino pins, I highly recommend to use driver boards as well.
It may save hours of debugging ... (or defects on the controller board)
P.S.: Just to add this: I like to use ULN2803 or similar ICs
See here https://docs.cirkitdesigner.com/component/10ef50eb-2484-89c7-fcb7-824682910a1d/uln2803-darlington-array
Inexpensive, easy to use, no additional external components, controls voltages up to 50V and max 500 mA, integrated clamp diodes for use with inductive loads, can be used with PWM to control motors, lamps etc.
There is an overall power dissipation limit, of course
I got project 5 to work using the original diagram from the book in the end. I was a bit hesitant to wire it up any differently given that the book says capacitors can explode, and my knowledge in this area is so poor 
I used the following method to fix the potentiometer issue - this came from another post on this forum from one of the system/ admin accounts i believe. Ive copued/ pasted below for the benefit of anyone who has same issue. Worked fine. Only bit i did different was that i didnt need to turn the legs of the potentiometer. The bridging jumper went in the same slot as the middle potentiator leg easily (on the other half of the breadboard)
The potentiometer is much larger than the illustration describes and takes up an entire breadboard column.
Fix: Use needle nose pliers to turn the legs of the potentiometer and also slide a jumper into the same slot and bridge it to the other half of the breadboard. This does work and will get yo past any issues with potentiometer fitment.
You might take this with a grain salt. Maybe i am not getting what your laying down.
But in your picture it looks like you jumped the wiper back across the breadboard with an orange jumper in column 17. Then you used a yellow wire to hook the jumped wiper to the arduino. Unless I am missing something in your specific project with your specific hardware, there is no need to jump the wiper back across the breadboard. You could just plug the yellow wire in column 17 on the same side as the wiper.
It's neither here nor there to me, but less wiring could mean fewer issues for you. Some of the holes in my breadboard seem a little sloppy and i get issues with making good connections. Fewer wires means fewer headaches tracking down the loose connections.
Ah right I see what you mean. I thought that each side of the breadboard needs to be connected up to power, in order for it to perform a function. I presumed thats why in the original wiring diagram, all components were kept on one side, and in the suggested fix, the orange jumper wire enables this. But I really dont know, im just following tips here and there, glad it worked lol. I may try your method and test it out.
It might be a good idea to go back and review the section "What's a Breadboard" on page 23 of the Projects Book. As you can see in Fig. 4, there is no connection between the vertical power bus strips and the horizontal rows on either side of the center divider — unless you explicitly make a connection by using a jumper wire. Thus, there is nothing inherently special about the two sides of the breadboard prototyping area.
The project diagram probably has everything on one side simply because if the potentiometer was moved to the right (to place the wiper pin in column f of row 17), then the potentiometer knob in the breadboard diagram would obscure your view of the entire right half of row 17, making it impossible to see how the jumper wire from the A0 pin connects to the potentiometer's wiper pin.
In other words: a breadboard is purely passive, like a bunch of wires.
Ah ok, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining all this. And ill probably need to read and reread the project book a few more times before it all starts sinking in properly