I have encountered a problem for which I am gravely concerned. I am running on a Arduino Due but I am willing and able to convert to a Arduino Uno if need be. I am powering the Arduino Due with a typically 9v Alkaline Battery.
Attached to the SPI port is a ribbon cable that also connects to a Pixy, a object-tracking component.
The Pixy requires 5v to operate which is supplied through the SPI port.
So, operating the Pixy on the Arduino Due by when nothing else is attached works flawlessly. The issue arises when attaching 4 continuous rotation motors onto the Arduino.
I am supplying the power of the servos via a 9v battery which is sent to a 6v regulator and then delivered to the servos. It should be noted that the only a GND cable and 4 of the pinout cables are the only things attached to the Arduino Due from the Servo circuit.
I suppose that the issue is regarding the current. However, I am not sure. Should I get motor shield? Any ideas or comments? Everything will be greatly appreciated.
Well, when having both the Pixy and the servos connected everything starts acting sporadically and the servos move a little, remain dormant or make a noise.
I bought a 8 AA battery holder. I put in the batteries plugged it in and poof! one of my servos melted. Thoughts? I am going to post my circuit diagram in a second
You may have lost the ground on your regulator setup and passed ~12v to your servos. A more reliable setup would be to use a 7805 regulator chip with a diode on the ground so it puts out 5.7v. A better choice would be to use a UBEC voltage regulator (~$3 on ebay) which is efficient and made for powering servos.