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Vcc and NoviceGuard

If you haven't "met" NoviceGuard yet.... start with the introduction?. That will open in a new tab or window... just close it to come back to here.

What is "Vcc"

"Vcc" refers to the basic voltage of your Arduino. Some Arduinos operate on 5v, others on 3.3 volts, which is often written "3v3".

Advanced Arduino users will understand that what follows in some respects over-simplifies, and that, with care, some of these "rules" can be bent. But unless you are very sure of your expertise, and your grasp of the NoviceGuard, take the following simple idea as "gospel"...

The NoviceGuard can be used with either 5v Arduinos or 3v3 Arduinos. If you have two, you can set one up to be used with 5v Arduinos, and the other to be used with 3v3 Arduinos.

Some daughter boards will work equally well with either sort of Arduino. Others will have to be produced in 5v and 3v3 versions.

The only difference on the NoviceGuard board itself for a 5v Arduino and one for a 3v3 Arduino would be the resistors for the LEDs. You could use a 3v3 Arduino in the board for 5v Arduinos... but the LEDs might be very faint, or maybe not light at all. It might be unwise to use a 5v Arduino in a NoviceGuard set up for 3v3 Arduinos, depending on what resistor/ LED combinations are on the board. It might be that the resistors are too small (low resistance) for 3v3 use. They might not sufficiently resist 5v signals to the LEDs, leading to too much current flowing thought the Arduino pin, and damage to the Arduino.

There ARE circumstances where an ADVANCED Arduino/ NoviceGuard user might have more than one voltage present... but this would be playing with fire, and is NOT for novices... nor does it much resist what you can do. I only mention it because of the socket for plugging a power supply into NoviceGuard... you might think it is okay to have, say, the Arduino running on 5v though the programming cable, and supply 12v at the socket, **IF** you had the jumpers set so that the voltage from the socket **ONLY** went to the pin 5 socket on the daughter board connectors... but I wouldn't encourage you to try that.







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