Mechanics and Construction > Mechanics and Construction

Servos?Motors?Actuators?Wad exactly are the differences?

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Admin:
Zeol is right . . .

look at the PID diagram at the top of this page:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/programming_PID.shtml

other things that can be an actuator:
wing on a bird
muscle
heating pad
your legs
steam engine

BADBOY13:
Thanks for the replies.

No wonder the terms are used inter-changably...

actaully i asked because i went to this exhibition and there was this robot with 3 sockets labelled, power, actuators and motor. That what lead me to ponder what exactly is ther difference.

thanks again.

Joe:
A motor is a type of actuator. They usually spin continuously.

Servos usually rotate to a desired position and stop. A servo is a package containing a small motor connected via a gear train (a bunch of gears) to a potentiometer which is connected to the output shaft (the "arm") is read by a control circuit which also reads input pulses and based on these 2 readings controls a motor driver that sends current through the motor which turns the output shaft via the gear train until the potentiometer which is connected to the output shaft reaches a certain position such that its voltage output is that awaited by the control circuit at which point it stops the motor. The output shaft (servo "arm") has now moved to the its desired position.

Servos can be modified to spin contiuosly like bare motors and motors can be combined with encoders and other hardware/software to make them go to positions and stop. Servos are much easier for either function.

In the case of the labels you saw, I would guess "actuators" in that case were linear actuators and "motors" of course were rotational. "Power" could have been a number of things.

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