Is my Arduino possibly broken? We work in groups on a project at school. We had to build an electric scheme with an Arduino to make a small car moving.

We got the parts from our school, except the Arduino (we had to buy it ourselves). We had to use a battery of 11.5 V. We also had electrical resistors to protect the Arduino and the stepper drivers.

The car worked for a while, but then we wanted to change the program and tried to upload new software to the Arduino. Now the Arduino is not recognized by any computer.

We tried several things, like multiple times unplugging the USB cable, hitting the reset button on a specific timed moment (some method found on the internet).

But it still doesn't work. When the Arduino is connected via USB, the 'on' LED on the Arduino is on. After that all we came also to the conclusion that some people made mistakes on building the electric scheme...


Is it possible that the Arduino is broken, since the battery has 11.5 V?
If the Arduino isn't broken, can the problem that it's not recognized by the computer be solved?


(Arduino Uno)
Considering that you used resistors to lower the 11.5V to an cough - cough "very normal and regulated 5V", that most certainly is the problem.

The "right and cheap" way to lower such high voltage and connect them directly to your 5V (just assuming, since you said that you used resistors to protect the Arduino) is actually to use a voltage regulator. Any cheap 7805 should do the job. The Arduino actually has its own voltage regulator on it, if you connect it though the Vin pin.

The "true and efficient" way to step down some voltage is actually to use a step-down converter. The way this is better then any normal regulator is that a regulator will lower your voltage by creating heat when the step-down converter will do it in a more efficient process.

The USB of your PC might also be the problem. There is a fuse on the Arduino and one in almost all USB ports of decent PCs. If the voltage spike is high enough, it might have burned the port. That is quite a rare event, but still possible.

Need anymore help, just comment. I'll be happy to help you!