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When I am done with a circuit and want to build another, should I remove power from the Arduino or can I just remove the unnecessary parts and start plugging in the necessary parts?

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3 Answers 3

up vote 9 down vote accepted

It is best to remove power while re-wiring a circuit, so, yes, disconnect the USB cable, and any other sources of power.

While disconnecting and re-connecting things, you may introduce short circuits, or put the circuit in undesirable states (eg disconnecting power to a chip while leaving power on its I/O pins, thus powering the chip throough protection diodes.)

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If you do not remove power during changing your circuit elements on the Arduino, you might have risk of putting a positive in a negative and negative in a positive, or do other type issues:

  1. Short Ciruiting
  2. Over Powering the Arduino board from a wrong Vcc power source
  3. Causing a circuit to go hay ware if connected incorrectly (i.e. putting a an led without a resistor while arduino is supplying power to the LED circuit).

All these problems are avoided - If you power off Arduino during re-aranging your Arduino microcontroller board.

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I have been told it is best to remove the power. I, however, have not removed the power a numerous amount of times, rewired the circuit and my Arduino is still fine. Some issues that might occur when not removing the power: short circuits possibly frying the Arduino, components not receiving the correct signal, and components not sending the correct signals. In short, it is best to remove the power when changing the circuit.

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Dear new user, welcome to Electrical Engineering StackExchange site! As an editor, I must point out that users of this site usually expect answers to be more ellaborate, as to be useful for other users with the same problem. You could perhaps share your references with us and tell us where you found that information, to remove power, and why they suggested that to you. I, myself, burned a couple of ATmegas by making changes to connections in a breadboard with the power on, so I wouldn't advise to keep the power on. I guess you've just been lucky so far. –  Ricardo Feb 26 '14 at 1:57
@Ricardo Okay, thank you. I will edit it later. I don't see how my comment isn't elaborate but Peter Bennett 's isn't. –  Cammy_the_block Feb 26 '14 at 4:29
You are right, his answer isn't elaborate either. But that's not really usual of him. But the system doesn't show us all the answers when we are reviewing. It only asks us to guide users who post answers for the first time. So I only saw your post when I was reviewing. In any case, I'll add a comment to his answer to that extent. When you edit it, the system will let me remove my downvote. Thanks for understanding. And welcome again! –  Ricardo Feb 26 '14 at 11:19
Okay sounds good. Could you point me in the of information about the review cue? –  Cammy_the_block Feb 28 '14 at 2:07
Here's how to write a good answer and here's some information about the review queues. Is that what you're looking for? –  Ricardo Feb 28 '14 at 2:14

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