Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Mechanics and Construction => Mechanics and Construction => Topic started by: shyamgenious on March 07, 2011, 07:04:45 AM

Title: servos-what the hell do they do
Post by: shyamgenious on March 07, 2011, 07:04:45 AM

[glow=light blue,2,300]as a newbie[/glow]i would like to ask a standard question(it may seem silly but anyways)
what do servos do?? do they move like dc motors and could be used for wheels or do the rotate things and can be used for thi ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? :o

Title: Re: servos-what the hell do they do
Post by: praveen_khm on March 07, 2011, 07:49:59 AM

I guess this might help you to start with

http://www.societyofrobots.com/actuators_servos.shtml (http://www.societyofrobots.com/actuators_servos.shtml)

Cheers,
Praveen

Title: Re: servos-what the hell do they do
Post by: Juicaj1 on March 13, 2011, 03:09:07 PM

servos are pretty much motors that don't rotate 360 (but can be modified to do so) and use fancy trigonometry and electronics magic to rotate specific degrees. A more precisely controlled motor essentially.

Title: Re: servos-what the hell do they do
Post by: rbtying on March 13, 2011, 04:21:48 PM

Quote from: Juicaj1 on March 13, 2011, 03:09:07 PM

[...] use fancy trigonometry and electronics magic to rotate specific degrees. [...]

No trigonometry is involved - it's just a position-PID controller with (usually) a potentiometer as the input value, and a setpoint scaled to the potentiometer's min and max values.  The cheapest ones aren't even PID - just P or maybe PD.