Controlling a servo with 5 wires

I have a servo with 5 wires (black, red, white, blue and grey) from an rc car and no idea how to use it…
I also have a H-bridge l293d if that helps.
Anyone an idea how to connect the servo to an arduino uno?

It could be a cheap "servo" with no feedback electronics apart from the shaft potentiometer.
A photo would be helpful...

Hi, @teaage
Welcome to the forum.

Please read the post at the start of any forum , entitled "How to use this Forum".

Can you please tell us your electronics, programming, arduino, hardware experience?

Thanks.. Tom... :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

Well, from my understanding, the red & black wires are most likely positive and negative. If I were you, and didn't care too much about the servo, I would just start sending PWM signals to any of the remaining wires (white, blue and grey) and see what happens. There is a chance that it might start doing what you want. (possibly)

Good luck!!!! :grinning:

transistor_man

Post a photo.
We don't know what you mean by 'servo'.
It could be an RC type servo in a plastic case, or a 3-phase brushless motor.
If it is a brushless motor then you need a brushless motor ESC (Electronic Speed
Control) and you need to drive it with the Servo() library, since the chance of
you building your own brushless motor controller is 0.

What was the servo used for in the RC car ?

I'm guessing bang-bang steering...


With the servo the direction of the wheels where controlled, i don‘t see any model number. I will try sending random pwms…

When the servo was in the car could the steering be adjusted by small amounts in each direction or was it just full left, full right and centre ?

I agree with this. The Red and Black would go directly to the DC motor and the White/Blue/Grey would go to the three terminals of the feedback potentiometer.

Measure the resistance between White/Blue, Blue/Grey and White/Grey. If the two smallest values add up to the largest value it is a potentiometer. The pair with the highest resistance are +5 and Gnd and you read the position from the third wire with analogRead(). You can then use a DC motor controller (H-Bridge) to steer by running the motor to match the feedback value with the desired value.

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Start by measuring for any resistance (at all) between the red and black wires, and any of the other wires, also try the "Diode test" range.

If there is no continuity between the red and black wires and any others, then they are clearly separate parts and presumably a potentiometer.

Thanks that was what i needed. I managed to control it somehow!

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