Need help with controlling servos

Projects Programming
1

New to Arduino and trying to learn how to program. Been somewhat frustrating.
I mounted 2 standard servos into my the skull of my Halloween skeleton. One servo opens and closes the jaw, second one turns the skull side to side.
Question: do I need a servo shield to run both servos at the same time?
Is there just a basic program out there so I can have these 2 servos move simultaneously?
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

2

If you want both servos to move "at the same time", see the article at

You do not need a servo shield until you have used up all your PWM pins. You can run one servo on each PWM pin. Note that running several servos may require a more powerful power supply so you don't get a "drawdown" that results in a voltage so low that your processor cannot function reliably.

3

Ok. Great. Thanks so much. The programming has me totally lost. Like learning a new language

4

Just using the standard servo.h library there is not problem running several servos at the same time and they do not need to be on PWM pins, you just adjust the values and the pulsing happens in the background, there are some 'buts' the main one being that 'interrupts' need to stay turned 'on'
An external powersupply is a must, of course, do not power the servos via the Arduino.

5

Thanks so much. How do I power the servos separately?

6

You can power then with a 5v power supply (i suspect they need 5v) and use common GND.
You can probably power the Arduino with the same supply (or with USB power) but just in case put at least a 'fly-back Diode' and a fair size capacitor to keep the supply a bit more stable.

7

Kirwin:
Thanks so much. How do I power the servos separately?

Each servo has three wires: Power (usually Red), Signal (usually White or Yellow), and Ground (usually Black or Brown). Hook all the Power wires to the '+' side of your power supply (typically 4 to 6 volts and about 1 amp per servo). Hook all the Ground wires to the '-' side of your power supply AND to the Arduino Ground, Connect each Signal wire to a digital pin on the Arduino.
Multiply the servo Voltage by the number of servos (1 Amp each) to get the number of Watts you will draw from the power supply. For example, two servos on 5V need about 10 Watts of power.