Hi all! I recently apparently destroyed a board after I moved a project to a new location, disconnecting and reconnecting a bunch of wires in the process (there were two breadboards involved, plus an external mechanical contraption with motors and switches).
As result, many inputs/outputs seemed to not respond any more, the SerialPrint does not work, BUT a simple program like the basic BLINK (LED13) somehow loads and works… Also, the 5V power now seems to be going to the motors and vice-versa the 9V for the motors somehow powers the board: not normal…
So my question is: is there a way to protect an Arduino against this kind of mistake? fuses? diodes? on each output/input. Other options?
In general, no. Learn to be careful and only move things around when power is off. I had a EE professor who forced us to get in the habit of using Red for power and Black for ground. That way when we had the inevitable first accident on the job, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.
Connecting 1k resistors to inputs and 100 ohm resistors to outputs can help since it limits currents to safer levels, but has the side effect of potentially affecting your circuit negatively. There’s no one size fits all answer.
There is the Ruggedized Arduino board. The following link explains a bit how they protected their product in comparison with a regular Arduino. Just as an example. Not to be considered as a recommendation for buying it. As we don’t know enough about the circuits involved and impact of altered signal response. Nor is this a fool-proof solution. Just better odds of surviving.