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What I am projecting is to substitute the manual throttle for a little electric motor with an Arduino computerized one based on two sensors that yields 0-20V.

But Arduino works with 5V, so I need a lot of signal condition and I face a problem in simulating (to replace the manual control) an output 0-12V.

I am wondering to leave Arduino and move to something else that already works with 12V (in such a way I would also raise the sensor signals quantization).

Any Idea about what would be a wise choice?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Do you need a 12V analog signal to control a motor or do you want to control a 12V motor? In first case you can use a DAC or PWM at 12V + RC filter, in second case you can use PWM + a mosfet. Can you clarify? \$\endgroup\$
    – Wesley Lee
    Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 1:35

3 Answers 3

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Most of microcontrollers I worked with uses voltages from 1.2V ~ 5V. I had to work with external voltage converters and conditioning circuits for components I needed interfacing with. I believe there are MCUs with higher operating voltages, but I doubt they'll be economical for general use.

I don't know how accurate you need to be with the sensor output, but IMO, there are a lot of circuits and ICs that can make it simpler to interface the sensor with the MCU already. Perhaps get an MCU with better ADC or use an opamp.

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There are no microcontrollers that work off of 12V that are commercially available. Why? because

1) Suppliers are moving to lower power, and an easy way to do that is to have a lower voltage (because the load from each transistor is the same). Most run at 3.3, you can find some 5V tolerant microcontrollers for automotive use.

2) You can buy voltage regulators and step down DC-Dc converters.

If you do some searching, you should be able to find numerous circuit examples to help you step down the voltage on this site and on google (I'm not going to include any because they are easy to find)

I did have one design that required a 5V MCU to make it easier to drive mosfets, all of my other designs have had some kind of voltage regulation. If you have analog electronics, you will need voltage regulation for those too.

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Looking in the net for a microcontroller I found this tiny adaptor that, eventually, would let me use Arduino.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review \$\endgroup\$
    – PeterJ
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 3:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ It doesn't seem to do the job in a second look; <br /> These boost (step-up) voltage regulators generate higher output voltages from input voltages as low as 2.5 V. [....]. This regulator is available with a fixed 5 V, 9 V, or 12 V output:* <br /> This gives a fixed voltage: it is not an Arduino's controlled voltage. \$\endgroup\$
    – Federico Munerotto
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 11:33

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