Powering a Microcontroller and Motors with a Single Battery Source

@davee 

... a healthy battery will act in a broadly analogous manner to an electrolytic capacitor.

Never thought of that before but I guess they are two plates separated by an electrolyte like a large (?) capacitor.

Ideally I would think if you are designing a working circuit you need an oscilloscope so you can actually see what is going on?

@davee No surprises there Dave, fairly basic stuff. I am pretty sure Amazon still uses the term Veroboard (just checked and they do) Your Wiki link does NOT exist. See pic.

The reason I used the vero board was it was easier to solder than one more wire on a pin. I have also used boards like in the 2nd picture and either did a solder drag or used large gauge wire to make a sort of bus. Bill used those techniques in one of his videos.

I think in HS we may have encountered Litz wire since most of our electronics lab was WWII armed forces gear (the HS was a training facility during the war for Radio and Radar operators)

I took a small Radar set home as the government finally released the parts the summer I graduated but one of my teachers called me as he knew I would be interested. I THINK that is where I encountered the Litz wire but that is a guess some 60 odd years after the fact so could be waaaaay off.

And yes, I think we are fairly far afield re the OP, but still interesting.

Hi @robotbuilder,

  An interesting thought. 

I did say 'broadly analogous', so there are marked differences, particularly as the frequency increases, as the internals of the battery is based on moving ions, whilst the capacitor is based on electrons moving. So don't take the analogy too far. In both cases, the battery or capacitor, will try to act as a charge reservoir, to stabilise the voltage.

In the distant past, I recall some 'transistor radios' would 'motorboat' ... i.e. make a putt...putt sort of oscillation noise, as their 9V battery aged. It could be fixed temporarily by changing the battery, which was probably on its last legs, or more permanently, by replacing the electrolytic capacitor connected across the incoming 9V supply, which was probably drying out and reducing in effective capacitance.

(The oscillation was typically caused by the audio output stage taking a current increase, as it reproduced the programme content, causing the power voltage to drop slightly, which upset the rf or if stages, so they shut down, reducing the audio input to the audio output stage, and so on in a loop.)

An oscilloscope might be useful ... I have never used one in this context.

Best wishes, Dave