Capacitor across power leads?

Support Other Pololu products
1

I’ve got other robotics hobbyists advising me, in general, to attach a capacitor across the power leads for any sort of motor or serial controller. Apparently this smooths out the power supply or some such.

Is this needed for the Pololu boards (e.g. the micro SSC or the micro DSMC)? Or do they already have something built-in that provides the same benefit?

Thanks,
— Joe

P.S. Is this thing on? I seem to be the only one here this month…

2

Hello,

Both of the products you mention have separate power inputs for power and logic, so it’s generally not a problem. Capacitors certainly don’t hurt, and if you do see noise problems, you should definitely add some caps.

- Jan