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Hooking Arduino Uno into Solar power?

nealbopper

Hello again,

I looked for this topic and am surprised there isn't a million topics on this but here's my question. I have a 60w solar panel, a solar regulator and a 12v marine battery for my Chicken coop project.

I want to hook my Arduino Uno automatic door opener to this system but am hesitant to hook it up in fear of burning the system up. Is there a product I need to look into that will regulate the power coming

into the Arduino and my motor controller? They are separate power sources and I would think I need to treat them differently. An in line fuse perhaps? Any suggestions?

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    Hi Neal,

    The voltage will determine how much current a given device takes not how much the source can potentially deliver. Your source may be able to deliver a lot of power at 12 volts but the UNO will take the same amount of power regardless of whether it is hooked to a 12 volt small power source or a 12 volt large power source. The UNO has an internal voltage regulator that takes the voltage delivered to the power jack or the Vin pin and reduces it to 5 volts for the use of the circuitry. 12 volts is on the upper edge of what the internal regulator can handle and a Vin voltage of 9 volts is more common. To be safe you could use a 7805 regulator IC and feed its output to the 5V power pin of the UNO.

    John

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  • 0

    Hi Neal,

    The voltage will determine how much current a given device takes not how much the source can potentially deliver. Your source may be able to deliver a lot of power at 12 volts but the UNO will take the same amount of power regardless of whether it is hooked to a 12 volt small power source or a 12 volt large power source. The UNO has an internal voltage regulator that takes the voltage delivered to the power jack or the Vin pin and reduces it to 5 volts for the use of the circuitry. 12 volts is on the upper edge of what the internal regulator can handle and a Vin voltage of 9 volts is more common. To be safe you could use a 7805 regulator IC and feed its output to the 5V power pin of the UNO.

    John

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