Servo tip for beginners

A

angus40

Supporting Member
Buy good quality servos ! The difference is night and day between the medal and plastic geared models .

All may seem fine with the plastic servos until they actually get used in a prop . You can waste a lot of time messing with code settings and just getting frustrated . Settings adjustments can smooth out some things but not all and definitely nothing like replacing the servo with quality . The old saying holds true .
You gets whats you pays for !

Give a listen to this servo compared to the plastic servo I used in the skull .

 
I'm looking at getting started in servo props this year. Can you give some suggestions of good servos to purchase?
 
These are 2 types I have tested so far .

MG996R Metal Gear Torque Digital Servo >> Quite heavy duty
MG90S Metal Geared Micro Servo >>> much better than the SG90 but still for light duty
 
I just ordered a couple of these for heavier lifting .I hope I don't need to go even larger than these . :)
Moving a wolf's head forward and back for a servo is tougher than I imagined .

ANNIMOS 25kg DS3225MG Digital Servo
 
Ive just received 4 MG 996R servos
the 1st one i tried was slower than i was expecting and suddenly started doing a 360 rotation i had to power it down to reset it
I wasnt aware that they did not have a mechanical end stop
 
qubie said:
Ive just received 4 MG 996R servos
the 1st one i tried was slower than i was expecting and suddenly started doing a 360 rotation i had to power it down to reset it
I wasnt aware that they did not have a mechanical end stop
Click to expand...

Sounds like you may have received 360 servos .

The 180's do have a stopper added inside the case . There are u tube videos showing how to modify the 180 to be 360 .
You will need to experiment with the code to find the 90+/90- break point, or return the servos for the correct ones .

Mg996r come in both fashions .
 
Bought from ebay the guys listing states max 180 deg rotation ive messaged him so will see what happens

thanks for the reply

Qubie
 
Did I mention that the ESP32 based version of the ESPixelStick V4 (Unify branch) now supports 16 channels of PWM servo control via a PCA9586 adapter card (just added it this week)?
 
MartinMueller2003 said:
Did I mention that the ESP32 based version of the ESPixelStick V4 (Unify branch) now supports 16 channels of PWM servo control via a PCA9586 adapter card (just added it this week)?
Click to expand...

Cripes, this gives me the excuse I needed to place another order :)
I am currently looking at these for a 32-cam mod .
 
WOW thank you
I have 2 pca9586 boards so just ordered 2 esp32's
is the code available for download now or soon although it will take a week or 2 for the esp32's to arrive

once again thanks for the info
 
as for my mg669r servo's i tested all 4 using espthing from dirk and they work fine when i test using D1 mini with external 3a power supply and Vixen, 2 do nothing just buzz a little and 2 will work ok then suddenly spin full 360 like it received bad data, then have to power down and start again
 
qubie said:
WOW thank you
I have 2 pca9586 boards so just ordered 2 esp32's
is the code available for download now or soon although it will take a week or 2 for the esp32's to arrive

once again thanks for the info
Click to expand...
The code is in development. You would need to clone the ESPixelStick Unify branch and build for the ESP32. WARNING: Read the README file. There are MANY libraries that need to be downloaded and some specific tools to create and upload the littlefs image. Shelby will be productizing the ESP32 later. For now you have to build it yourself.
 
qubie said:
as for my mg669r servo's i tested all 4 using espthing from dirk and they work fine when i test using D1 mini with external 3a power supply and Vixen, 2 do nothing just buzz a little and 2 will work ok then suddenly spin full 360 like it received bad data, then have to power down and start again
Click to expand...

For fun , set the start point to 5 or 10 rather than 0 also set the end point to 170.
It sounds like you are having an endpoint overrun but it should be chattering like heck not running 360 .
Strange behavior if these servos are truly 180 and not purposely built 360.
 
Hi Martin thanks for the info, yes i have seen your other posts with reference to read the readme file, I love it, will give it a go when the esp's arrive

Hi Angus the sketch i use i posted here

the sketch is for my singing skulls i use the min max of 90 - 45 for jaw movements, for standard servos it works a treat but these being digital and what looks like 360 deg they are acting a little different.
I have to say they are too slow for jaw movement and it looks like they struggle to keep up with the commands from vixen but if i change to 20 - 160 for pan and tilt so far they are working.
i dont want to install them in a skull just in case they decide to spin him around a few times until something brakes
 
qubie said:
Hi Martin thanks for the info, yes i have seen your other posts with reference to read the readme file, I love it, will give it a go when the esp's arrive

Hi Angus the sketch i use i posted here

the sketch is for my singing skulls i use the min max of 90 - 45 for jaw movements, for standard servos it works a treat but these being digital and what looks like 360 deg they are acting a little different.
I have to say they are too slow for jaw movement and it looks like they struggle to keep up with the commands from vixen but if i change to 20 - 160 for pan and tilt so far they are working.
i dont want to install them in a skull just in case they decide to spin him around a few times until something brakes
Click to expand...

I'd be willing to wager 0 is fine & 160-170 is the solve all ! :)
 
Hi Angus servos are going back on monday but i will do some more testing over the weekend while i still have them,
a little bit more learning and understanding cant be a bad thing for me thats half the fun, the other half comes when it all works
 
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