power for multiple arduinos

[Gareth Barry]

So I am beggining to run into issues with what I think is an inability for the PC usb ports to supply sufficient power for all my arduinos as well as the usual stick, throttle and pedals. I've got a Leonardo, a pro Micro and a pro-mini also connected. I'm running them as a mixture of HID devices as well as DCS BIOS. Some of the inputs and arduinos are running through a cheaper, non-powered multi port USB hub. When all are connected, I sometimes get random disconnections, which seems to go away when I reduce the number of arduinos connected. I have tried jumbling the connections between the mutli-port hub and the extra USB connections in the back of the PC, which seems to help some (if fewer are in the hub and more directly into the PC) but doesn't seem to cure the problem completely. I'm pretty sure it's a power supply problem, as I've checked all the connections and I don't think anything is shorting. So, I guess the simple solution is to buy a more expensive, powered USB hub, or, alternatively, power each arduino with an external 5v supply. Which of these is the better solution? I'm guessing if i went with powering each arduino with it's own +5v source, seperate to the usb, I would have to disconnect the power rail coming from the USB on each arduino? How do people who build huge exact replicas of cockpits, with multiple arduinos, get around this issue?

thanks in advance

Gareth

[sharkfin61]

@Gareth Barry just yesterday I looked up solutions for a similarr problem, however, I'm not as far as you are. I was trying to develop a wireing plan for my pit.
Now, to get to the point, regarding the 5V supply of the Aduinos (you need  in fact 7V per unit), I read, when you connectz the powerjack, you cant have the USB connected, Thus making your forwarding if inputs to the PC quiet difficult.
If anyone knows better and can tell me the opposite, please do.
What I have done so far to supply my hardware are powered usb3 hubs (RSH hub ).

But as I said, I haven't the expirience with a fair amount of arduinos, only with 2 so far. They were working together with TM HOTAS, pedals, UFC, TIR, headset,  2 TM MFD's a ,CDU, a wireless mouse,  all on USB ports.                              

[No1sonuk]

1 hour ago, sharkfin61 said:

@Gareth Barry just yesterday I looked up solutions for a similarr problem, however, I'm not as far as you are. I was trying to develop a wireing plan for my pit.
Now, to get to the point, regarding the 5V supply of the Aduinos (you need  in fact 7V per unit), I read, when you connectz the powerjack, you cant have the USB connected, Thus making your forwarding if inputs to the PC quiet difficult.

You need at least 7V if you use the jack or VIN pin.  You CAN also feed 5V INto the 5V pin, but you need to remember that this is direct to the Arduino's 5V bus, so if the supply is "dirty" or goes too far over 5V, it'll cause problems and/or damage.
An advantage of using the 5V pin, though, is that you're limited to the Arduino chip power levels, not that of the onboard regulator.

As for connecting the external supply AND the USB:  There should be no problems as far as I can see - there's a supply blocking diode on the USB port side (at least there is on a Nano) that should block any power applied to the Arduino externally from feeding back into the USB host.

[JohnnyChicago]

I run into the same problems... Right now i have 10 Arduinos , TrackIR ... (mixed Nanos, ESP32 and ESP32 Display Modules).. 
Before i had 2 powered USB Hubs with one 2 Amps(7 Ports) and one with 3 Amps (10 Ports) . Today i received a new powered Hub with 5 Amps..(10 Ports)

All Hubs are 3.0 / 3.1 USB.  My Motherboard is a Asus ROG Maximus Hero Z790 .

No change at all .. still have the issues ... Dcs-Bios (Socat)  says Permission denied on random Ports..

dont know what else to do ...

 

[Gareth Barry]

Shucks JohnnyChicago, that's exactly what i was afraid of! Have you tried progressively disconnecting 1 arduino and then another, in order to possibly isolate the problem? My understanding is that you can also have issues of it disconnecting if one of them shorts to ground? Please keep me posted, id like to know if you manage to solve this!

 

 

52 minutes ago, No1sonuk said:

You need at least 7V if you use the jack or VIN pin.  You CAN also feed 5V INto the 5V pin, but you need to remember that this is direct to the Arduino's 5V bus, so if the supply is "dirty" or goes too far over 5V, it'll cause problems and/or damage.
An advantage of using the 5V pin, though, is that you're limited to the Arduino chip power levels, not that of the onboard regulator.

As for connecting the external supply AND the USB:  There should be no problems as far as I can see - there's a supply blocking diode on the USB port side (at least there is on a Nano) that should block any power applied to the Arduino externally from feeding back into the USB host.

Ok so just to be sure, if i have a 9v supply from for example a basic wal-wart, into the jack port of the uno, and then plug in the usb to the PC, then the uno will draw power from the wal-wart and not the PC, which should cure the problem? Does the arduino uno have decent filtering to get a stable 5v from a basic switch-mode power supply?

[JohnnyChicago]

Zitat

Shucks JohnnyChicago, that's exactly what i was afraid of! Have you tried progressively disconnecting 1 arduino and then another, in order to possibly isolate the problem? My understanding is that you can also have issues of it disconnecting if one of them shorts to ground? Please keep me posted, id like to know if you manage to solve this!

Have tried it a few moments ago ..No luck .. still have randomly "Permission denied" messages .. I don't know if this is hardware related .. (i removed one of my older Hubs to)

Does anybody have an older Socat version ?

[Gareth Barry]

Have you tried going into device manager and disabling power saving for usb ports? Not sure that it will help but its worth a try?

Ultimately, i reckon its either insufficient current to the arduinos- which seems unlikely given you are using powered hubs, or a short from power to ground. 

Have you tried running just a single arduino with a basic code outputting something to serial monitor in the IDE? A basic 'hello world' program.

I would do that for each arduino individually and check that it works continuously for a few minutes, to make sure that there arent any issues with that particular. Essentially try to isolate what the problem by divide and conquer.

[Biggus]

10 hours ago, No1sonuk said:

As for connecting the external supply AND the USB:  There should be no problems as far as I can see - there's a supply blocking diode on the USB port side (at least there is on a Nano) that should block any power applied to the Arduino externally from feeding back into the USB host.

I have a vague recollection that the Uno and the Mega don't have that diode.  I believe most of the pro micros do have it, though.

 

@JohnnyChicago Could you be running out of USB endpoints?  Might be worth having a look with USB Device Tree Viewer to see how many endpoints you've used.

[sharkfin61]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb No1sonuk:

As for connecting the external supply AND the USB:  There should be no problems as far as I can see - there's a supply blocking diode on the USB port side (at least there is on a Nano) that should block any power applied to the Arduino externally from feeding back into the USB host.

@No1sonuk Ahh, very pleased to hear that.

[No1sonuk]

14 hours ago, Biggus said:

I have a vague recollection that the Uno and the Mega don't have that diode.  I believe most of the pro micros do have it, though.

You are correct, though I just looked, and they have a MOSFET that cuts off the USB supply when power is supplied to Vin or the jack.

[JohnnyChicago]

Zitat

vor 15 Stunden schrieb Biggus:

I have a vague recollection that the Uno and the Mega don't have that diode.  I believe most of the pro micros do have it, though.

 

@JohnnyChicago Could you be running out of USB endpoints?  Might be worth having a look with USB Device Tree Viewer to see how many endpoints you've used.

 

I have USB Tree Viewer installed , but i dont know what to look there ... there's too much information , lol

Today i tried to remove all USB Devices, deinstalled Drivers , restart Windows, all Drivers installed .. all Devices are showing correctly in Device Manager ..

but no luck ... there is allways a random "Permission denied" on one Device with Socat..

 

 

 

[Biggus]

Check the number of endpoints per controller, each device can use up quite a few and you've got something like 127 possible endpoints per USB2.0 controller, from memory.

Just rereading your problem, @JohnnyChicago is it your ESP32 device ports that are giving you 'permission denied'?  I ran into that a few weeks ago with mine and I initially got around it by running socat in a powershell.

[Gareth Barry]

9 hours ago, JohnnyChicago said:

I have USB Tree Viewer installed , but i dont know what to look there ... there's too much information , lol

Today i tried to remove all USB Devices, deinstalled Drivers , restart Windows, all Drivers installed .. all Devices are showing correctly in Device Manager ..

but no luck ... there is allways a random "Permission denied" on one Device with Socat..

 

 

 

Firstly, congrats on your setup- I'm jealous!! Following on from what Biggus above has said, I really, really think you need to adopt the engineer's debugging approach of divide and conquer. I've had these sorts of issues in many home-built things, eg when building high-gain vacuum tube amplifiers. Not knowing the source of the problem is what is discouraging you and not helping the situation. Develop a plan to isolate the problem. Start by disconnecting all arduinos and peripherals, use only your 'name-branded' inputs such as stick, rudder and throttle. Test that this doesn't give any problems. Then test each arduino and peripheral seperately and individually to see that they aren't giving you any problems. After that, THEN start testing them in different combinations. At the moment we don't know whether the problem is an individual microntroller, or having them in combination. My serious suggestion is to eliminate the possibility of a faulty panel first.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Gareth Barry

[JohnnyChicago]

vor 55 Minuten schrieb Biggus:

Check the number of endpoints per controller, each device can use up quite a few and you've got something like 127 possible endpoints per USB2.0 controller, from memory.

Just rereading your problem, @JohnnyChicago is it your ESP32 device ports that are giving you 'permission denied'?  I ran into that a few weeks ago with mine and I initially got around it by running socat in a powershell.

Oh that is very interesting .. it seems that only my ESP32's are affected .. im going to try this  when i am at home..

Thank you !!

[JohnnyChicago]

vor 43 Minuten schrieb Gareth Barry:

Firstly, congrats on your setup- I'm jealous!! Following on from what Biggus above has said, I really, really think you need to adopt the engineer's debugging approach of divide and conquer. I've had these sorts of issues in many home-built things, eg when building high-gain vacuum tube amplifiers. Not knowing the source of the problem is what is discouraging you and not helping the situation. Develop a plan to isolate the problem. Start by disconnecting all arduinos and peripherals, use only your 'name-branded' inputs such as stick, rudder and throttle. Test that this doesn't give any problems. Then test each arduino and peripheral seperately and individually to see that they aren't giving you any problems. After that, THEN start testing them in different combinations. At the moment we don't know whether the problem is an individual microntroller, or having them in combination. My serious suggestion is to eliminate the possibility of a faulty panel first.

Thank you

Before my Apache Pit i had a non finished F-16 Pit with also +/- 12 Arduinos and one ESP32... never had a problem !
Now with the Apache i have more ESP32's than Arduinos .. trying the solution from Biggus

 

[Gareth Barry]

Good luck - and I reread my previous post and I apologise if it came across as lecturing - judging by the standard of your simpit, you clearly have experience and know what you are doing. Please let us know if you have success and find the source of the problem - I looked at ESP 32s (S2 or S3)and was seriously considering using some as HID devices (I sometimes prefer HID devices to DCS BIOS) but will probably now if they cause problems.

Going to try to power at least the leonardo and the uno with seperate 9v supplies into the barrel jack, let's hope i don't blow the motherboard! This solution won't work with pro-minis, pro-micros etc as they don't have a barrel jack input.

[JohnnyChicago]

vor 11 Stunden schrieb Biggus:

Check the number of endpoints per controller, each device can use up quite a few and you've got something like 127 possible endpoints per USB2.0 controller, from memory.

Just rereading your problem, @JohnnyChicago is it your ESP32 device ports that are giving you 'permission denied'?  I ran into that a few weeks ago with mine and I initially got around it by running socat in a powershell.

Nope, same error    I tried only with my Arduinos .. all ESP32's where disconnected

[Biggus]

Pain.  You could try a hardware work around on the arduinos by doing an RS485 network and then you'd cut down on your port numbers, but that's a fair bit of work if you've already got everything built.  I'd still go through and look at your USB topography.  Count your used endpoints for each controller and see whether that's part of the issue.  Other than that, I'm stumped.

[JohnnyChicago]

Hi,

Testing a RS485 Network now with one Master and one Slave ... Success !

That is now the way i go  

[TonyG]

I’ve got 25 arduinos, plus stick, throttle and pedals. 

Powered usb hubs is my answer. I’ve got 5 7-port and 2 4-port powered hubs.  

Single usb cable to the computer.  Also have a 4 port hdmi-to-usb in there for the 4 display screens. 

[JohnnyChicago]

I had multiple LED Controllers connected directly to internal USB Ports on Motherboard (Case Modding). After removing them i had no more connection problems despite using powered USB Hubs for my Pit !

[sharkfin61]

Am 12.1.2025 um 20:17 schrieb JohnnyChicago:

I had multiple LED Controllers connected directly to internal USB Ports on Motherboard (Case Modding). After removing them i had no more connection problems despite using powered USB Hubs for my Pit !

@JohnnyChicago Have you already completed your RS485 installation? (I'm still hesitating...)

Am 17.12.2024 um 08:37 schrieb TonyG:

I’ve got 25 arduinos, plus stick, throttle and pedals. 

Powered usb hubs is my answer. I’ve got 5 7-port and 2 4-port powered hubs.  

Single usb cable to the computer.  Also have a 4 port hdmi-to-usb in there for the 4 display screens. 

May I ask you, how powerful your PSU is?

[JohnnyChicago]

Zitat

@JohnnyChicago Have you already completed your RS485 installation? (I'm still hesitating...)

Nope, because i cant run more than 3 devices and i dont know why..

[Biggus]

If you're using the breakout boards, have you removed the bus termination resistors on the boards that aren't at the ends of the bus?

[JohnnyChicago]

vor 40 Minuten schrieb Biggus:

If you're using the breakout boards, have you removed the bus termination resistors on the boards that aren't at the ends of the bus?

I am using these breakout boards , is that the resistor on R7 ? Should i remove these (leave open)  on all boards except the last one ?

(Sorry for hijacking this thread)