Powering Arduino Uno and LED light strip off one power supply?

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hello everyone,

I'm in the process of making a homemade LED scoreboard that wirelessly connects to a ping pong table that can change the score. I'm trying to keep the amount of wires and plugs to a bare minimum, so I was wondering what sort of component would be able to take either mains power or power from a relatively high current output (needed for the 50+ LED strip) power supply and output to two separate voltages (9-12 V for the Arduino and 6 V for the LEDS). Would anyone have any suggestions? If all else fails, I'll just have to have two separate power supplies plugged in underneath the scoreboard.

Thanks!

Nick

2

Six volts is always awkward. If the LEDs would run on 5 volts you could also power the Arduino from that.

How much current do you need for the LEDs?

...R

3

To be on the safe side I'll need about 4-5 amps.

4

If a 5amp and 5volt power supply is not suitable for the LEDs (i.e. you really do need 6volts) then two power supplies may be the simplest solution.

You mention a scoreboard so I wonder if it really only needs to work for a few hours. If so you could power an Uno from a pack of 3 AA cells (4.5volts) connected directly to the 5v pin.

...R