In the modern world addiction to gadgets is common and gadget addicts are getting younger. In the world of consumerism having ownership of the most recent item is a status symbol. One area of technology which is increasingly becoming an element in consumer products is robotics and its various components. While industrial robots continue to be extremely expensive consumer robotics are becoming less costly and therefore the components used far cheaper. Sadly numerous components of robotics continue to be costly and anyone becoming involved in hobbyist robotics has to take care and educate themselves as much as possible in order to avoid expensive errors. One component commonly associated with robotics are servo motors but what are they?
Trying to find information about servo motors and drives on the Internet is incredibly difficult and even if you find it the language used is often complicated and difficult to comprehend. More often than not the information is relating more to industrial applications. This is commonly the case in the field of motion control and servo motors and drives.
Servo motors are important elements in robotics but they are also components used in such things as radio controlled airplanes and cars. Servo motors are small devices which have a shaft (a rod or pole which can be placed in various positions using a coded signal. By changing the signal the servo will alter the angular position of the shaft accordingly.
Even though Servo motors are rather small they include built in control circuitry and they are immensely powerful having enormous torque. All of this power is controlled by 3 wires, one for power and the other two wires for earth and control.
And Now For The Technical Stuff
Sadly I cannot avoid being a little technical here, but stick with me and you may discover that you comprehend the basic concept.
Along With the control circuit servo motors feature a variable resistor called a potentiometer which is connected to the shaft. The potentiometer helps the control circuit to monitor the current angle of the servo.
Normal servos control angular motion up to around 180 degrees, a few servos go beyond this but to go further than 210 degrees is near impossible and they feature a mechanical stop which is built onto the main system to prevent it.
Servo Drives
Servo drives are used to power servos. By changing the current sent to the servo motor the servo drive enables proportional control. Because the amount of power sent to the servo motor is directly proportional to the distance it moves extremely accurate movement is possible.
Servo motors and drives are used in various areas of industry such as CNC machining, factory automation and robotics. While these servos are commonly huge they are also found much smaller for use in consumer items and hobbyist systems such as Lego Mindstorms.
If you want to discover more about, or need buy industrial servo motors you really need to contact a specialist such as Goodwin Electronics in the UK.
Tags: robotics, servo motors, servos