PCA9685 | PR20-10 Regulated Power?

Hardware
1

Does the PR20-10 need a regulated 12V power supply?

It appears the graphic says you need regulated 12V, but has a leftover remnant from the non-inductive load PWM board that says it supports 9 to 15V DC.

2

This controller can accept 9-15VDC with a 12VDC being an ideal choice. Regulation is a good idea, regardless of voltage range, what we want to avoid is Household 120VAC to 12VDC converters (wall warts) that are diode rectified as this causes lots of noise on the line. Hope this helps.
Ryan

3

So we’ve been having boards fail left and right and use power directly from a 12V battery that has an alternator that charges at 14V.

Any ideas?

4

We would need to know more about the load under control as too much current will kill this device.
Keep in mind, each channel dissipates up to 8 watts of heat, if you exceed this, it will die.
Hope this helps.
Ryan

1 Like
5

I think its gonna be best just to regulate the power as a first step as well as gather some data about the load under current. The max current from the solenoids is supposed to be 12V at 1.5A, but they are in an enclosed cabinet that gets super hot so we may need to add some protection there.

Thanks for the suggestions. I’m gonna run a battery of tests on this.

6

Sounds great, please let us know if we can help in any way. If we can pinpoint the failure on the board, we may be able to suggest some alternate solutions for you, so please let us know. We can also examine a dead board to determine what failed. Solenoids are tricky because they are highly inductive. High voltage spikes send surges throughout the board. In some cases, they are very difficult to manage as they will exceed component ratings considerably (usually generating excessive heat in the process).