Retail Servo Landing Page

Short Description:

Congratulations on your purchase of a SparkFun servers! Servos output shaft of the motor to spin properly to control, robotics and other permits for the project, opening up all kinds of possibilities.

Retail Servo Landing Page

Requirements:

Servo motor and motor driver board with a multitude of microcontrollers can be controlled. However, following this guide you will find helpful:

• arduino
• Female headers, jumper cables or other connection methods
• Naked wire
• (Optional) breadboard
• (Optional) soldering iron
• (Optional) sour

What is a server:

Continuously spin the motor when the maximum power will be applied to them. That is okay for many purposes, but sometimes you want to control the exact location, such as "move and close to 180 degrees." Doing this is a feedback loop, the motor shaft in response to what it was doing, and makes decisions based on the information that is required, which consists of a sensor on the measure. For example, if the motor is now pointing to 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock and from the point of you like it, then the decision-making circuitry compared to 10 o'clock and 12 o'clock, and the motor will decide to move clockwise until it is pointing to 12 o'clock.

If you time (and money) spent a lot of a motor vehicle may be added to these parts and smarts, but the good news is it's built into a server that has all these things! Inside a small package is a DC motor, slow torque ( "Energy"), a trade speed for the gear train, the output shaft position and an "error amplifier" to the desired position in order to measure the true comparison is a potentiometer ( "Error") and the motor that moves away error. Cool, huh?

How to use it:

There are two wires normal motor; You just go to the voltage applied to them and they were off. DC motor to reverse the polarity of the two wires, and it is run in reverse. A server is a little different. It's three cables, one for power, one for ground and one for the command said. Command? Let's talk first about the power and ground.

Hooking it up:

Servos hobby radio control (RC) aircraft use, which is usually 4.8 is designed for battery use. They are supplied as a fine of up to 6V will work, we usually run 5V, many of which use the electronic system. The red wire is 5V, and the brown wire to the ground. Unlike DC motors, you get the motor to run in reverse polarity should be reversed. It is always positive to 5V line, and it will run in reverse when required internal control circuitry.

In this guide, for example, if you hook up a server to an Arduino. There are many ways to accomplish this. You only woman on the server header and a jumper wire pairs in the header on Arduino can. You can also cut and solder the edges of the controller servers. Another temporary system solder together the two pieces of 3x1 male headers, so you can connect the server to a breadboard.

Retail Servo Landing Page

How do I want to control it?

Servos pulse width modulation (PWM) based on a simple electrical understand the language. This means that you control it over the wire to 5V pulse, and the pulse width will tell the server to a specific location. This sounds complicated, do not worry; The software and hardware available to do the hard work for you.

servos controlled by the width of the pulse is sent from the server you. You servers in its lowest position (0 degree) you want to move, then you have a pulse width of 1ms (MS milliseconds, or one 1000th of a second) to'd like to send. His highest position in the server (180 degrees) to move if you want to send it to a pulse width of 2ms. 2.0mx 1.0mx and in some locations will correspond to the minimum and maximum. Servos would be updated regularly, so you usually command every 20ms or so (50 times per second) to send any change in the position of servos, even if.

As a result of the input pulse and bass positions

These standards are, but you usually find in a server or even a narrow (or greater), you can get started by sending pulses. Note that the server can not do a full 360-degree spin! It allows you to go further than the rotation, the shaft internal stops (perhaps with a grinding noise) will be hit, and the server will draw quite a bit of power. (The server's life shortens, so do not do it intentionally). The server is a type of "continuous rotation" that can spin 360 degrees are called, but you lose positional control - continuous rotation servos, the pulse width of the rotation speed (forwards, backwards, and stopped 1.5ms) controls.

Show my library!

As is common with Arduino, has been working hard for someone else. Arduino IDE is a built-in library, called appropriately enough the server that makes it quite easy to control the servos. Most locations to pick up your server from the lowest to the Arduino website to follow this example. If you need help to upload sketches to the Arduino software is installed, or if their website has all the information you need.

Strategy

• Keep in mind that, servos, while under heavy load can draw quite a bit of power. For full strength, you make sure that your power supply power to one of the World Cup (per server) will be able to handle up to.
• In some cases, the processor in the same power supply off if you are running your servos, servos the current (or not so much noise on the line) it can draw your processor can be reset or misbehave. The easiest solution to this problem is to run your processor and a separate power supply servos (but be sure to have a common ground between them) is. More complex solutions involving power supply noise filtering technique; Google for advice.
• Servos have the highest speed. Your server is acting erratically, then you get to switch very quickly from one location to another (after a delay to add to your command if you think this could be a problem) might try.
• Server Library PWM pins (analogWrite for) the same as using some of the resources, and the pins will be disabled. If you want to use PWM library server at the same time be aware of this. For more information, see the documentation library.
• Due to manufacturing variation, servos different from each other may have slightly different ranges. It will affect your project, remember that the server is connected to the library () command to fine-tune each server, you can position the minimum and maximum.
• You need to drive a lot of servos and are running out of pins, such serial server controller (ROB -08897) might look in as external hardware controllers. The serial commands take as input, and the board can drive up to 8 servos.

Rejoice!

Enjoy your new server! If you have any questions, problems, or if you want to show off your projects, do not hesitate to contact us at Tech support@sparkfun.com.