noob - controlling 4 servo's with arduino?

hey arduinos!

A friend of mine asked me to help doing a stage design for a dance project, which needs to control 4 ropes with servo motors. A good time to finally use the arduino diecimila i have lying around ^^

We are working on a processing sketch to simulate the movements of the ropes, from this it will output four speed values which should control the movement of the ropes. The motors should be continous rotation servos that should able to rotate in to directions.

I'm quite new to this whole electronics thing so i had some questions:

  • the motors would be hitachi servo motors (see spec in reply)

  • can i use arduino's Servo library?

  • any other pointers? tips? tutorials?

thanks,

i.

info and specs can be found here:http://www.introspector.be/store/ADAX4%20documentation.pdf

is it possible to control these through arduino?

Those look like industrial servos that use a completely different protocol from the hobby servo libraries that are available for the Arduino. The datasheet indicates that they are driven from a Hitachi ADAX4 motion control module – these modules look like they can be driven from a pc (probably through RS-485). If you do a search on ADAX and Hitachi you can probably find more information about the protocol.

hey guys,

found some extra information:

http://www.introspector.be/store/ADAX4.pdf

thanks... apparently it can be controlled trough a analog 0-10V signal

the guy who is delivering the motors needs to know a few features of the arduino diecimilla:

  • PWM frequency

  • 5VDC or 24VDC

  • Minimal en maximal duty cycle of the PWM.

Any place where i can find this information?

greets

i.

thanks