Hey, i am building a quadraped robot (dog like creature) made from 3d printed parts of low density filament. It consists of an Arduino mega and 12 low power servos ("https://www.amazon.co.uk/diymore-Bearing-Helicopter-Airplane-Controls/dp/B09WQSX9KC/ref=sr_1_9?crid=1ZICE79DOSYJS&keywords=servos&qid=1700348454&sprefix=servo%2Caps%2C262&sr=8-9&th=1")
i have been trying to power it with 2 twelve volt battery packs (8 AA's) and an mb102 power control board but the servos dont seem to be getting enough power. Is there any advice you could give me regarding batteries, power-control units or really anything that would power up the servos properly? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
The usual rule of thumb is that the power supply must be able to provide 4.8 to 6 V at 1 Ampere per struggling, low power servo. Since all of the servos in your build will be under load at any time, that means 12 Amperes. Alkaline AA batteries can provide only 2-3 Amperes, even when fresh, so one 4xAA battery pack per leg might work. If not, use 5xNiMH AA packs for each leg.
Many people use high current NiMH battery packs intended for radio control race cars for projects like this.
I doubt that your DM996 servos are "low power", but could not find information about the start/stall current. The popular MG996R servo requires 2.5 Amperes per servo (30 A for 12).
If you use a battery pack with voltage higher than 6V, plus a voltage regulator for the servos, the voltage regulator must be rated for higher than the expected current draw.
A breadboard supply can only provide 5volt@150mA with 12volt input.
2000 times less than what you need.
Leo..
Hi, @hstannah
Welcome to the forum.
https://forum.arduino.cc/t/how-to-get-the-best-out-of-this-forum
Can you please post a copy of your circuit, a picture of a hand drawn circuit in jpg, png?
Hand drawn and photographed is perfectly acceptable.
Please include ALL hardware, power supplies, component names and pin labels.
Can you please post some pictures of your project?
So we can see your component layout.
Please note that even if a servo is not moving, it will consume current if it has to provide torque to keep position.
Tom... 
Here is a (rough) drawing of my current circuit layout. Assuming the MB102 is the main problem, is there any other power regulators or power controllers you could recommend? Is there any improvements on the circuit layout to be made? Thank you very much.
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