Wiring the IR Receiver

[RyanN]

Originally Posted by popo308

We just took the digital in/out and bridged 14 and 15 ground and power to our IR board and it was working with no problems (and this way your nor running off of your backup and your still giving the board 10 volts... also minimizing wire runs)

How did you "bridge" the connection? Did you tie two +5 together, and the two GNDs together or did you do GND, +5 to GND, +5? Either way should not work, and the second way mentioned will short out the +5V strip. The first way would still only give you +5V. I think you are saying you did it the 1st way.

The first way is a parallel circuit. It will not increase and will not decrease the voltage. In this certain case, it will also not increase the amount of current.

What you should have is a series circuit, which WILL NOT work with the RC. This would have two power sources... You take the negative of ES1, tie the positive from ES1, and tie it in with the negative of ES2, and then take the positive of the ES2 (ES1 = energy source 1, ES2 = energy source 2). You get the voltage by adding the voltage of each energy source. (Say you have 2 7.2V batteries, and you hook them in series, then you would have 14.4V.)

Parallel circuits are completely different. The current changes, and the voltages should be an average of the energy sources (I have a 6V and a 12V battery, and put them in parallel [Bad idea by the way, don't do this] then the voltage should be around 9V.) As for the current, if you have 2 12V 17AH batteries put in parallel, it should make the output current 12V and 34AH.

So, to make this concise...
Parallel = adds more current
Series = adds more voltage

If it is working fine, then do what you wish. All I am saying is that we tried it with the 7.2V backup battery and killed ours. Check your voltage with a multimeter to see if you are actually getting 10V, because I really doubt you are.