Hi all,
I would love some advice on an a servo motor arduino project I am making (to control small lightweight marionette puppets). I wandered if anyone could recommend a decent power supply for 5v or 9v servo motors, that can be plugged into a wall (not batteries). The servo motors will be going for 8 hours a day for 3 months in a gallery so looking for something reliable. Any suggestions would be super helpful,
Many thanks ,
Hazel
Welcome to the forum
How many servos are we talking about ?
9v servos would be unlikely
Hi UKHeliBob, Thanks for responding.
I'm hoping to use five 5v metal geared servos, they will be displayed aprox 1 metre apart from each other so I will probably use separate Arduinos and power supplies. In which case it would just be 1motor, 1 Arduino and 1 power supply each.
Many thanks
To intelligently choose a supply for a motor the stall current needs to be known. The stall current should be listed on the servo data sheet.
I use Mean Well medical grade 5V @ 4A from Jameco.com
Thanks Mark, do you just plug yours straight into the Arduino?
Thanks so much for you help. This is what I could find on the data sheet:
Thanks so much for this. Yes I couldn't find the current info anywhere online... I had better buy an ammeter then
I looked as well and did not find anything specific. I have looked before for other servos with the same lack of success. It is a mystery to me why that spec is not published.
The closest thing to a spec that I found was from a Pololu page on servos.
Since servo currents usually are not specified and we might not want to bother measuring each servo we use, it’s good to keep a few estimates in mind. A standard servo will have a stall current around one amp, a micro servo will need a few hundred milliamps, and a giant servo can draw ten amps or more. Since servos run at basically the same voltages, the only ways servos can offer more torque is to have higher gear ratios or to use more current. If two servos have similar speeds at the same voltage but one has five times the stall torque, it will likely draw five times the stall current.
Do take care measuring the stall current. Servos do not like to be stalled for very long before the magic blue smoke escapes.
Yepper. You need all sorts'o crap in a small dev lab! LOL
Figure at least 1A per - that servo has torque in the kg range. Those mean well supplies are rock solid.
Lol yes I need to stock up! I'm new to this as you can probably tell. Thank you for your help on this, much appreciated
Invest in an inexpensive 3D printer. I got one for $150USD (~£100) that allows me to make all sorts of mounts and bits & bobs to solve many mounting issues. The buss bars, etc are all 3d printed.
Wow these look amazing, I will def think about investing in a 3d printer, thanks!
Thanks for this, thought I was going mad not finding the specs online. The Pololu info is really useful.
The development environment I use is all free. NanoCAD for 2d drafting. TinkerCAD (online) for 3D. Exports to .STL file for 3D printing or into Fusion360 for "real" 3D modelling and additional dimensioning.
This is the drawing for the pink mount shown in the lower right panel of the quad image above. Concept to part in about 1/2 hour. We've spent more on different colors of filament than on the printer itself.
Arduino is great, but lots of time the only way to mount something seems to be with adhesive! Not pretty, and not suited to production or maintenance. I'm a product designer, and you have to have a way to mount this stuff and replace it in the field without soldering. EVERYTHING needs to be separable with a connector on it. Everything is mounted with 4-40 (M3.1?) or 6-32.
Prototyping on Lexan (generic acrylic) is inexpensive and can be had in colors and various thicknesses. 1/4" is thick enough to tap and mount directly. No nuts needed or screws projecting out from the back of the panel. Here's my acrylic mounting tool kit:
Thats amazing, thanks for sharing!
Hello, me again. I am looking for a breadboard power supply module that will take 1amp but they all seem to be max 700ma. Do you have any recommendations for these?
Many thanks,
Hazel
Be very careful if you intend to use a breadboard for large currents. It is not what they are designed for
