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Servo Dog Questions


JF1993

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I know I've posted about wanting to get into building animatronics, but this year might just be the year for it. I have a couple of questions before making any major decisions though.

 

From what I've read the servo dog seems to be fairly easy, but does it come with a power cord? If not where would I find one that will work with the servo dog controller?

 

Also is there anyway to split the signal coming from the servo dog, so you can set up multiple servos on one channel?

 

I'm really excited about getting started with this, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

 

Jacob

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Hi Jacob,

There are a couple of ways to power the Servodog...Basically, you need a DC power supply.  You can do a larger one that will power the card and the servos or separate power supplies...

 

You may have a valid reason for putting more than one servo on a channel, but for my animated figures, the channels have different commands going out...Are you trying to have two figures doing the same thing?  I've never tried that, but for starters you would need a beefy power supply to supply some good current to the servos without voltage drop.  You don't want to starve them...How many channels will each figure use?

 

Also, plan on putting the figures relatively close to the Servodog controller.  You will have issues if you try to put the controller in the garage and the figures outside...Don't ask how I know this... :)

Edited by Randy
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Figure out how many amps or milliamps your servos will use when they're all moving at the same time and buy accordingly.

 

I run Rollie and Dan off a couple of Radio Shack wall wart power supplies. (Catalog 273-316). Each penguin uses about 900 ma for the eight servos blasting all at once (which almost never happens) so these 1 amp units run them easily.

 

Since I'm beefing up servos this year, I'll have to recalculate and see if 1000ma is still enough. Probably will be, since servos are designed to be energy efficient because most applications run on batteries (planes ,trains, and automobiles).

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I to am looking into getting started with animation. Is there servos that you guys have found that you like better.

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I use HS-645MG Servos from Servo City.com and they work well (about $30 each)....The cheaper ones may have plastic gears that tend to break over time...

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Figure out how many amps or milliamps your servos will use when they're all moving at the same time and buy accordingly.

 

I run Rollie and Dan off a couple of Radio Shack wall wart power supplies. (Catalog 273-316). Each penguin uses about 900 ma for the eight servos blasting all at once (which almost never happens) so these 1 amp units run them easily.

 

Since I'm beefing up servos this year, I'll have to recalculate and see if 1000ma is still enough. Probably will be, since servos are designed to be energy efficient because most applications run on batteries (planes ,trains, and automobiles).

 

Ok, so let's say I go with Randy's suggestion and use the HS-645MG servos. I'm posting a link to the product on sevocity's website below. Now how do you know how many ma each servo uses? Is it just the current drain listed on the website?

 

P.S. Thanks for all the input on servos guys.

http://www.servocity.com/html/hs-645mg_ultra_torque.html#.U39VafldWul

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Listed is the idle current and the no load current. Add up the no load current for all your servos. Add in a fudge factor of about 20% and use that for your current needs. The servos will draw more than their rating if they are bogged down but you probably won't move them all at once so that should be plenty.

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