Hello,
Im experiencing an issue and/or curious of what design I should take moving forward with my intended goal. I recently just bought a Arduino 101 board trying to improve computational power and reduce energy consumption while gaining the gyro and such over my other uno board (v3). I am trying to create an autonomous quadracopter with six ping sensors for each axis of view (front, bottom, left, right,...) and am running into an issue as the 101 board runs on 3.3 volts. The cheap 4-pin ping sensors require a 5V power source which I can run from Arduino but will quickly exceed its current supplying capabilities when I use 6 sensors at once in range mode. I have bought a buck converter to efficiently reduce the quadracopter's voltage (battery) down to a safe 5V to supply the Ping sensors but my question concerns powering the ping sensor with one source from the regulator and then transmitting/receiving signals with the Arduino board. Im hoping I can tie the grounds together between the two but I don't know what issues this may cause concerned of different ground potentials. One battery btw will be supplying both the regulator to ping sensor and the Arduino board which has its built in regulator.
If tying the grounds together is a bad option, how can I run 6 ping sensors at their proper 5V potential without overloading the current capabilities of the Arduino board (20ma) and still having room on the Arduino board for transmitting and receiving signals. Pin space is a premium as I not only need to power and communicate to these ping sensors but power the four motors through an H-bridge setup.
Thank you for your time and help!
Adam Piotrowski
Connect all the grounds, ideally from each board back to the battery. Use voltage level shifting chips to convert from 3.3V to 5V, and from 5V to 3.3V.
3.3V into 5V may be okay as is. If not, buffer with a 5V powered device, such as 74HC125.
cd74HC4050 works great for 5V to 3.3V.
Both available at digikey.com in thru hole and SMD variants.
Hi,
Hello,
Im experiencing an issue and/or curious of what design I should take moving forward with my intended goal.
I recently just bought a Arduino 101 board trying to improve computational power and reduce energy consumption while gaining the gyro and such over my other uno board (v3).
I am trying to create an autonomous quadracopter with six ping sensors for each axis of view (front, bottom, left, right,...) and am running into an issue as the 101 board runs on 3.3 volts.
The cheap 4-pin ping sensors require a 5V power source which I can run from Arduino but will quickly exceed its current supplying capabilities when I use 6 sensors at once in range mode.
I have bought a buck converter to efficiently reduce the quadracopter's voltage (battery) down to a safe 5V to supply the Ping sensors.
My question concerns powering the ping sensor with one source from the regulator and then transmitting/receiving signals with the Arduino board.
m hoping I can tie the grounds together between the two but I don't know what issues this may cause concerned of different ground potentials.
One battery btw will be supplying both the regulator to ping sensor and the Arduino board which has its built in regulator.
If tying the grounds together is a bad option.
How can I run 6 ping sensors at their proper 5V potential without overloading the current capabilities of the Arduino board (20ma) and still having room on the Arduino board for transmitting and receiving signals.
Pin space is a premium as I not only need to power and communicate to these ping sensors but power the four motors through an H-bridge setup.
Thank you for your time and help!
Ada
Sorry but it needed to be edited to make the entire post readable.
Tom... 