seperating pot and servo

Projects General Guidance
1

Ok, i just hooked up two servos to ext power. I then then tried hooking two pots to the arduino 5v, completely seperate from the servos power source. It seemed to work just great. Is that efficient though? Is this a catastrophic failure waiting to happen? I dont see how, but I would rather ask the forum to save my money on buying new uno and servos.

Just to illustrate, the pots are hooked up to the arduino 5v, with the signal wire to analog pins A0 and A1. One ground wire hooked to the ground pin next to 5v.

The servos are hooked up to an external power source, and digital pins 9 and 10. one seperate ground wire hooked to ground pin next to Vin.

I am using an arduino UNO.

Outside of the A0, A1, Digital pin 9, 10, and both ground pins being used, nothing else is hooked up to the arduino.

2

You need to connect the GND from the Arduino Uno to the GND on the external power source, to give them a common ground, or the Servos will not work.

Otherwise it seems all fine to me :slight_smile:

3

Kalveo, thank you for the reply. That's just it, I did hook this up as I typed and the servos DO work. Very well! That's why I stopped to ask the question. I was concerned it would do something unwanted. Ideas?

4

No, the only danger is when you try to run something like a motor or another inappropriately heavy load such as too many LEDs, from the regulated 5V.