I have an hs-55 servo http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-55_sub-micro.html which I've been trying to use with arduino and a pololu baby orangutan. in some of my experiments the timings were bad and I could see the servo stuck at its end of range.
Now, I have the servo library figured out but if I set it close to either end of its range (0 or 180) it rotates continuously. Busted?
The pololu baby orangutan by the way is a very cute piece of hardware with an atmega328 and h-bridge in a very small and light form factor but there are a bunch of things about it that make it awkward for arduino-philes. I've just about given up using it for my planned robot though I'm sure I'll find a use for it.
there are a bunch of things about it that make it awkward for arduino-philes
Such as?
it runs at 20 mhz instead of 16, it has only iscp hookup for programming and there's no easy way to get serial i/o, its libraries use some of the timers in different ways than the arduino expects, the examples given are targeted at avr studio and use raw i/o and different register names than i'm used to. Oh, and the user led is on D0 which would be RX for the arduino.
These are not deadly and it IS very functional. Probably if it weren't for my servo issues (which involve the 16/20 issue and the timer usage issue) I mightn't be so dismissive but at the moment it feels like it would be easier to roll my own little board with the avr and driver chip. It wouldn't be AS small but I'd understand it.
I don't have enough experience to help with your actual question. Hopefully, someone else will step in.
Do the Pololu libraries use all of the timers?
I don't have enough experience to help with your actual question. Hopefully, someone else will step in.
Do the Pololu libraries use all of the timers?
and i don't know enough about the pololu libraries to answer yours. There's good material here Pololu - Programming Orangutans and the 3pi Robot from the Arduino Environment. and some discussion here http://forum.pololu.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3230&p=14973&hilit=arduino#p14973
I have concluded that my servo is, in fact, broken. It works if I keep it away from the endpoints (0, 180) but if I send it to either it just keeps going. I think it's looking for the end stops which i must have crushed with my mighty code.
again, the baby orangutan is an excellent little thing but I think it works best with AVR studio and more base knowledge than I bring to the table, at least regarding servos.
I think so because I just did.
I made a mistake in my code and the servo input went berserk giving even negative values.
Now everytime the servo comes to it's end and returning to neutral there is a spark like sound.
I can still use it for testing but I will not put it in a plane or any vehicle.
I did find that my servo was busted. when I opened it up I found a bit of plastic had broken off so there was no limit to its movement. I spoke to hitec about a different servo and they confirmed that you could strip out the gears on a servo by overrunning it.
so... be careful out there. It's a bitt tricky though because some servos have only 90 degree travel and restricted plse lengths so it would seem pretty easy to screw up.