Powering a continuously rotating servo.

[Darek]

I want to power a continuously rotating servo, which I can control with an ON/OFF switch.  From reading Robot Builder's Bonanza, it seems it's not as easy as hooking it up to a switch and battery. I'm surprised, since it's a DC motor and some gears.  Is there a way to do this?  Or do I need special control signals?  If the latter, any suggestions on the best way to do this? 

This is a very uncomplicated application.  I want to turn it on manually to have the servo motor continuously rotate, and turn it off manually to make it stop.  At some point I might be interested in having this controlled by my phone or a remote, but it's not needed now (however, any suggestions on this are welcomed as well).

Thank you.

[jwatte]

The point of a "continuous rotation servo" is that you can electronically control it proportionately.
If all you need is "turn on -- motor goes" then you should use a regular DC gearhead motor. The electronics in the servo will just get in the way, as you need to provide a pulse of about 1 millisecond duration every 30 milliseconds to make it turn one way, and 2 ms duration to make it turn the other way.

[Duane Degn]

If you open up the servo you could bypass the electronics and wire the power wires directly to the motor. This would cause the motor to turn at full speed when ever the power was connected. It will turn the opposite direction if you switch the "+" and "-" power connections.

As jwatte said, there are easier ways to do this. By doing what I suggest you're throwing out the "brains" of the servo.