I have a question about continuous rotation servos, which I'm not able to answer myself (I'm not much into electronics and programming). But I hope it is an easy question for the professionals here.
For a small project at the university I'm studying at, a cogwheel needs to be operated. Every time a button is pushed, the cogwheel has to turn a small amount of degrees (for example 5 or 10 degrees) in one direction only (so it should never turn in the other direction). I was thinking about using Arduino software and connect a continuous rotation servo to the cogwheel.
Is it possible to do this using a continuous rotating servo? Or are there some limitations I have to take into account?
Thanks in advance!
Or are there some limitations I have to take into account?
You should take into account that, generally, "continuous rotation servos" aren't servos at all, and cannot by themselves be commanded to any particular angle.
Even sail winch servos are good for only about three complete rotations.
A stepper motor seems a far better choice. A stepper motor has a known number of steps per revolution, so a partial revolution is just a number of steps.
A stepper motor seems like the "obvious" solution -
A stepper motor application usually needs a "home" sensor so you know where you started, whereas a (normal) stepper has the feedback built-in so it always knows where it is.
One company I worked for had a mechanism with stepper running a timing belt. There was a flag attached to the belt that ran through an optical interrupter. (I think there was an optical sensor at both linear-limits.)
A stepper motor also requires a driver circuit, whereas the servo has that built-in too, so you just power the servo and send it the angle signal and you're done.
