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Nov 21, 2017 at 19:01 vote accept User2341
Jun 29, 2017 at 18:40 comment added JRobert "what is input voltage supposed to mean if not the signal voltage" The input voltage in this case refers only to the power supplied to the Arduino board for powering the MCU and will be regulated down to 5v. Excess power will be dissipated by the regulator as heat. From the point of view of the MCU, both its operating voltage and its input signals are expected to be 5v. (This is a slight simplification; the MCU could, on a differently designed board, be run at somewhat lower voltages.)
Jun 29, 2017 at 0:12 comment added fred_dot_u One quick add here. I did a search for maximum power for Arduino and the search results return a maximum of 12v for the Arduino Uno. Most of the projects I've built have used either six or nine volts to power the board. Twelve volts may not create excessive heat, as the board is rated to handle that level.
Jun 29, 2017 at 0:09 comment added User2341 I think you are correct that some boards like the arduino pro have a smaller limit of 3.3v, but what is input voltage supposed to mean if not the signal voltage that you can feed into the board?
Jun 29, 2017 at 0:08 comment added fred_dot_u Your input voltage for powering the Arduino may be as high as 20v, but the signals the unit can safely handle should be limited to 5v and there's a possibility that some devices will restrict this to 3.3v, but my brain cells are on hiatus at the moment and I'm not confident about the last statement. Excessive voltage to power the Arduino will also be shed as heat via the regulator circuit.
Jun 28, 2017 at 23:40 comment added User2341 To be clear, you are saying that although the arduino specs say that my input voltage is up to 20 V, I really should stick to near 5?
Jun 28, 2017 at 23:30 history answered fred_dot_u CC BY-SA 3.0