The Demise of My Arduino Micro And Moving On to Arduino Leon

Hello,

I think I have finally fried my Arduino Micro. I had accidentally applied the 12v to a different port than the VIN and now the board doesn’t work although it does turn on.

So I am doing what I should have done in the first place: get a bigger board.

I have in my cart an Ardiono Leonardo. It has its own power jack. Before I finish my order I want to know if it works with the “#1467 Wall Power Adapter: 12VDC, 3A, 5.5×2.1mm Barrel Jack, Center-Positive” which I had bought previously. And if it works with Pololu A4988 driver.

If “yes” on both questions, then how do I deliver the 12 volts to VMOT of the A4988? Before since I had the micro placed on a breadboard I simply branched it from the barrel jack on the breadboard and included a 100uf capacitor, etc. I guess instead of using its onboard power jack I can still use my old power jack on a breadboard and power the Leonardo at the VIN and the A4988 at the VMOT?

Does anyone have a suggestion for a better and easier to use controller than the Arduino that will work with what I already have? I have seen some Pololu controllers but I am not sure if they make good replacements.

Thanks in advance.

Farzad

Vin at Leo will power it, as if going through the barrel connector. So you’re good.

Personally in addition to the baby orangutan, I love the Teensy 3.1, but that’s usually overkill. you can also try the micro type of boards. Sounds like you were using it? You haven’t really indicated why you aren’t still using it, and the demise of the first isn’t intrinsically linked to the board, just a short.

Hello, Farzad.

That 12V adapter should be fine. However, since 12V is on the high-end of the Leonardo’s recommended 7V to 12V operating range, we typically recommend a 9V adapter like this one. The 9V, 1A adapter would be less suitable for powering your stepper motor driver, though.

To supply power to VMOT and GND from the wall power adapter, you might consider using something like this DC Barrel Jack to 2-Pin Terminal Block Adapter instead of the DC jack on Arduino. You could then route a set of wires to the Arduino’s 0.1" VIN and GND pins and another set of wires to your stepper motor driver.

As for your last question, you might be interested using one of our A-Star Minis, which come with a preloaded Arduino-compatible bootloader and are better than the Arduino Micro in several ways. For example, the boards have on-board voltage regulators, feature reverse voltage protection, and we made available all 32U4 GPIO pins.

- Amanda

[quote=“Tomek”]Vin at Leo will power it, as if going through the barrel connector. So you’re good.

Personally in addition to the baby orangutan, I love the Teensy 3.1, but that’s usually overkill. you can also try the micro type of boards. Sounds like you were using it? You haven’t really indicated why you aren’t still using it, and the demise of the first isn’t intrinsically linked to the board, just a short.[/quote]

Yes, the board was fine until I powered the wrong pin. The only other problem I had with it was that it was too small for me to handle and to read. I have to have my reading glasses on AND a magnifying glass in order to tell what pins I am working with.

I want to try the Leo until I get my design completed and then maybe I will get something smaller when finalized.

I will check the boards that you recommended too.

Thanks for the input.

[quote=“AmandaS”]Hello, Farzad.

That 12V adapter should be fine. However, since 12V is on the high-end of the Leonardo’s recommended 7V to 12V operating range, we typically recommend a 9V adapter like this one. The 9V, 1A adapter would be less suitable for powering your stepper motor driver, though.

To supply power to VMOT and GND from the wall power adapter, you might consider using something like this DC Barrel Jack to 2-Pin Terminal Block Adapter instead of the DC jack on Arduino. You could then route a set of wires to the Arduino’s 0.1" VIN and GND pins and another set of wires to your stepper motor driver.

As for your last question, you might be interested using one of our A-Star Minis, which come with a preloaded Arduino-compatible bootloader and are better than the Arduino Micro in several ways. For example, the boards have on-board voltage regulators, feature reverse voltage protection, and we made available all 32U4 GPIO pins.

  • Amanda[/quote]

Hi Amanda, and thank you for the input.

I am not able to compare the board you are recommending with the Arduino Micro (or Leonardo) to be sure that it works with my other stuff like the A4988 driver that I have been using. Specifically I am not sure if the Arduino IDE is going to work with this or I am going to need another programming interface for it. Can you please clarify?

A-star mini is running the same chip as the Leo, and at 16Mhz, so I believe it will be usable in the arduino IDE as simply a “Leonardo”

Pololu may also have instructions for A-star specific upload settings. eitherway, it will work with the arduino IDE, but you might hear another person here responding to tell you what 1 file in your arduino folder you need to edit by adding a few lines.

Thanks, it sounds like it should be tried out.

Farzad