Project goes off line when motor operates

Need Help With My Project
1

Hi,

I have a project that uses the SparkFun Thing board that enables me to open/close my garage door. It works great, but I’ve noticed that I get the message that it is off-line sometimes when the door opens or closes. This can happen even when I push the button on the wall to close/open the garage door.

My guess is that since the project is plugged in with a power adapter (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13831) to the same outlet as the garage door motor, there is a voltage drop (when the door operates) on the SparkFun Thing board and that causes it briefly to go off-line.

Has anyone used capacitors, or created a decoupling capacitor circuit to prevent voltage drops? I’ve looked online and I’m not quite sure what capacitor to use or exactly how to wire it up. It looks like it could be as easy as putting one across the positive and negative maybe like this: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/capacitors/application-examples

Or, maybe using a battery like this: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/lipo-usb-charger-hookup-guide

Any advice is appreciated.

2

I have used one for preventing the same happening on a similar setup with a raspberry. Just place a capacitor connecting the input supply + to -. Check the cap polarity

Try with 220uF or bigger.

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image.png1271×889 33.2 KB

https://macrofab.com/blog/bypass-caps-decouple-your-way-to-cleaner-power/

3

As you haven’t shared any code, one question: you are not using the following “scheme” to drive the motor, right?

motor_on();
delay(10000); //the time is a random here
motor_off();
4

Thanks eried, I’ll look over the link you posted too.

I just tried wiring up one with a 10uf, 0.1uf, and .01uf since that was on one of the webpages.

Is there a better way to calculate what size I need? I just realized that was for an accelerometer voltage supply. I can try the 220uF but how did you arrive at that value?

5

Marvin7,

I’m not actually driving the motor directly but just doing a button push to a wireless remote which triggers the motor.

6

That is the one I used for my USB problem. I do not think there is a way to calculate it precisely without analyzing the problem in detail. If the problem continue just double it.

How do you specifically drive the motor?

7

Ok, I’ll give it a try.

I actually just hacked this opener:
LiftMaster 883LM Security+ 2.0 MyQ… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AZL9MK8?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

Then the SparkFun board just basically pushes the button on it.