LED Strip Dimmer with 2 power supply's killed my arduino

[kajhoej]

I'm trying to do the same as an example on mysensors.org

https://www.mysensors.org/build/dimmer

But have expanded it to 2 power supply's and 2 led strips as it draws more power than one power supply can handle.

It's been working with 1 power supply and 1 LED strip connected for some months now, but then I wanted to connect the other LED strip and the other power supply and my Arduino burned :(. Can anyone spot an error in my setup? I have attached an image of the Breadboard setup (without the radio and so) does that look right?

I might add that at first I when adding the 2nd power supply and 2nd LED strip, there was no light in the second, so I disconnected the power and connected it to my USB on my laptop to debug the output and connected the 2 power supplies again and then it happened. Is it bad to have both USB power and external VCC 12v power? Think it happened when I turned up the power on the gain to make the LEDs light up.

Anyway here is the setup:

Any good ideas?

PS: The MOSFETs are IRL Z44N

[mfalkvidd]

@kajhoej is this a genuine Arduino? Most chinese clones can't handle 12V. A lot of people on the forum have burned their clones this way, you are not alone :)

[kajhoej]

@mfalkvidd Thanks for your quick answer. No, it's a cheap Chinese one 😀. It been running fine for months with only the one 12v power supply that drives the arduino and 1 led strip. Only when I was trying to add the other power supply and the 2nd led strip it burned. Had my laptop connected to usb at the same time for debug.

Before trying again I would like to know if the hw setup looks OK so that I don't burn another because of it. I could replace it with an original Nano but I don't dare until I'm sure that my setup does not cause the problem 😀

[mfalkvidd]

@kajhoej the setup looks fine to me, except that 12V burns most clones - sooner or later.

[kajhoej]

@mfalkvidd Ok thanks for your answer. Glad to hear the setup looks ok (almost :) ) and I'll remove the 12V from the VCC and do some testing with 5v power through USB to start with.

Thanks :)