It still does not feel safe using a switching regulator knowing it will be pulsing 12 volts to "5 volts".
can I really use a switching regulator at 12 volts for any electronic device that uses 5 volts?
will a switching regulator damage any electronics? Does a switching regulator lower lifetime for the Arduino or any other sensors?
I plan on using a 7A switching regulator for all my 5 volt devices will they all be okay being directly connected to the switching regulator?
arduinopi:
It still does not feel safe using a switching regulator knowing it will be pulsing 12 volts to "5 volts".
The output of any decent, properly-designed 5V switching regulator is just fine, regardless of what the input voltage is.
can I really use a switching regulator at 12 volts for any electronic device that uses 5 volts?
Absolutely not! A 12V switching regulator supplies 12V!
will a switching regulator damage any electronics? Does a switching regulator lower lifetime for the Arduino or any other sensors?
No and no.
I plan on using a 7A switching regulator for all my 5 volt devices will they all be okay being directly connected to the switching regulator?
The amperage that the regulator will supply is not the issue. If you have a 5 VOLT, 7 AMP switching regulator of decent pedigree, then all should be fine. And you'll be able to power one truckload of Arduinos and sensors with it because 7 amps is a relatively large amount of current.
Lets put it this way, every modern PC (post the original IBM PC introduction) ever made used a switching regulator power supply to provide the several regulated DC voltages they require, that should give you an idea of how reliable they are. Think of a switching regulator as a 'black box' that has as it's input either a AC or unregulated DC voltage that can vary over a given voltage range. If the input is AC voltage it first converts it to a unregulated DC voltage. Next it converts this DC to a chopped (switched on and off at a very high switch frequency) waveform that can be controlled using feedback after inductive and capacitance filtering to a very precise regulated DC voltage. It does this conversion at much higher efficiency then old style linear voltage regulators. Linear regulator will slowly fade from use as switching regulators continue to get cheaper and smaller. It's almost a sin to use a linear regulator in any battery powered device that requires a regulated DC voltage source.
Lefty
Avoid cheap unbranded SMPS on eBay and it'll be fine - strangely the designers of power supplies do think about failure modes really carefully and test thoroughly - a company's reputation would be on the line if they sold a PSU that damaged things.