Functioanl art feasabilty ,is arduino the way to go ?

Using Arduino Project Guidance
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imagine a 40 ft long wall, on that wall are 8 shelves all running the full length of the wall. On those shelves are 480 lucky cats ( Japanese good luck /fortune cats) with the swinging arm moved by a 9g servo motor. ( the cat was dissected and retrofitted with the servo motor ) "anesthesia was not used" ... each of the cat's wires will be connected behind the wall! And this is where I exhaust my knowledge.

The idea is to have them do the wave or maybe act like a graphic equalizer.

Q1. does each servo need a driver?

Q2. how many multi-channel modules can pair with or be synced with others and do I use more than one computer to run software for the entire pride of cats?

Q3 . software? where does that come from, a stork? where do I find software storks?

Q4 power supply? hmmm 750ma per servo x 480 servos = 360,000 ma
That's 360 amps @ 5 volts ? sounds like a cat b.b.q, who is bringing the beer?

Q5 How long do these servos last?

please help me electronic geniuses, or even an electronic nube would be advanced compared to me .

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  1. It depends

  2. That question doesn't really make sense. You're asking about Arduino. What is the PC doing? What are the cats doing? What are you talking about syncing?

  3. No storks. Programmers. If you want it delivered stork style then be prepared to pay for it. Programmers aren't cheap.

  4. What kind of servos?

  5. What type of servo? You've given no link or part number for any servo. You've only mentioned the size.

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The average current of a 9g servo is much less, but the power supply must be able to handle the start/stall current of 750 mA, which is drawn for a few milliseconds each time the servo starts moving. You can break that up, for example into 48 power supplies each capable of 8A maximum output, supplying 10 servos.

Cheap hobby servos are designed for use in infrequently used toys, and will not last long in a wall art project. See Daniel Rozin's mirror sculptures, in which he describes learning this the hard way, and rebuilding the prototype to use steppers instead.

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  • 480 x servos for the arms.
  • 30 x I2C addressable PCA9685 16-Channel Servo Driver.
  • Power for 480 servos 5V @ 360A