[sudo-discuss] Arduino current protection code?

[hol at gaskill.com]

Are you worried about limiting current from arduino pin to servo signal pin or vice versa? Servos have their own controller built in so you shouldn't have to worry about any spikes on the signal pin.  If you were driving motor coils directly, I would add a diode from low side of the coil to Vcc to shunt backward current spikes.  Also, Arduino can only source 40ma of current so if your servo draws more than that you should use a power transistor (ULN2003 has 7 500ma transistors on one dip-16 chip) or maaaaybe gang output pins if you're close but really don't gang output pins.  What are you working on with such heavy duty servos? :)

Cheers,
Hol


Feb 24, 2013 10:50:20 PM, kinetical at comcast.net wrote:
Hi all and Jake if you get this,
>
>Does anyone know the bit of code for protecting your arduino from current spikes?  I could use that now.  I'm trying to run a bunch of heavy duty servos with a bit of a load.  They have a separate power supply, but I'm not using any motor controller.  Does this seem like a bad idea?  Could that little code provide enough protection from current spikes?
>
>Thanks for your advice,
>
>Tracy
>
>Thanks for your advice.
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