What Are Servos
Sep 8, 2010 Tech News
Posted by
Charles
In today’s modern world we seem to be addicted to gadgets and addicts are getting younger. In the world of consumerism owning of the most recent item is a status symbol. One aspect of technology which is increasingly becoming an element in consumer products is robotics. Although industrial robots continue to be very expensive consumer robotics are becoming more affordable and therefore the components follow the same pattern. Unfortunately many components of robotics continue to be costly and folk becoming interested in hobbyist robotics needs to be careful and educate themselves as much as possible in order to avoid expensive mistakes. One component commonly associated with robotics are servos but what are they?
Finding information about servo motors on the Internet is immensely difficult and if you discover it the language is all too frequently over technical and hard to comprehend. Most commonly the information is more relevant to industrial situations. This is commonly the case with motion control and servo motors.
Servo motors are vital elements in robots but they are also components in such gadgets as radio controlled airplanes and cars. Servos are devices which have a shaft (a rod which is able to be positioned via a coded signal. By altering the signal the servo will alter the angle of the shaft accordingly.
Even though Servo motors are rather small they have built in control circuitry and they are extremely powerful having enormous torque. All of this power is controlled by just three wires, one for control and the other two wires for earth and power.
The Complicated Part
Sadly it is unavoidable and I have to be a little technical here, but stick with me and you may find that you understand the concepts.
As well as the control circuit servos feature a a component called a potentiometer which is a variable resistor which is connected to the shaft. The potentiometer assists the control circuit to measure the present angle of the servo.
Normal servos control angular motion up to approximately one hundred and eighty degrees, a few servos go beyond this however to go beyond 210 degrees is nearly impossible and servo motors feature a mechanical stop which is built onto the main system to prevent it.
Servo Drives
A servo drive is used to power the servo motor. By changing the electric current sent to the servo the servo drive enables proportional control. As the level of power sent to the servo motor is directly proportional to the distance it travels incredibly accurate movement is possible.
Servo motors are utilised in various areas of industry such as robotics, factory automation and CNC machining. While these Servo motors are often huge they are also found much smaller for use in various consumer items and hobby robotics systems such as the popular Lego Mindstorms.
If you want to discover more about, or need purchase industrial servo motors you should contact a specialist such as Goodwin Electronics in Britain.
Tags: robotics, servo motors, servos