Hello,
For this year's science fair project I am creating an object collection robot. It uses a webcam and a small windows PC to perform computer vision operations while an Arduino Mega and an Adafruit motor shield (found here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-motor-shield-v2-for-arduino/overview) interfaces the hardware. As you can see from the attached image, the computer and regulator (found here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015YZZ1G8/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1450756203&sr=1&keywords=voltage+regulator) for the motor shield's power are in parallel with each other, both of which are being powered by an 18.5 volt LIPO battery. The Arduino is being powered separately from the PC's USB port. I imagined that this would all work very well, except when the computer is on at the sane time the motors are being powered, the computer immediately shuts down and the Arduino loses power. After a few seconds it will attempt to restart, the arduino will be powered on, commanding the motor shield to draw power from the regulator and the cycle will repeat. Initially I thought the battery was not able to provide sufficient power, however after using substituting in a power supply the same thing happened (and in any case this does not draw more than 1 amp at any time, a current the battery is more than capable of supplying). My next thought was that the voltage regulator is introducing unwanted noise into the mix, (and so much so that the computer is unable to run properly) as everything works as intended if the regulator is removed from the circuit and powered separately. Unfortunately, I do not have an oscilloscope to test for such a thing and I do not know enough about this sort of thing to know what sort of filtering to use, and so it is here I turn to the community for help. Is it a noise issue or something else, and what can I do about it?
Thank you,
William
