zild murai

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11 years, 5 months ago.

running my first servo motor

i recently bought a servo motor "GWS S35 STD" according to the manual included, i can use any of the 2 given voltage for the servomotor to run (4.8V and 6V)

im unsure which one to use for my mbed. and is it safe to just plug it into my breadboard where my mbed is attached or should i run it through external power source like a (2 AA battery)?

thanks :)

2 Answers

Erik -
11 years, 5 months ago.

It is between 4.8V and 6V. Regarding power supply, the servo cookbook page is probably useful for you: http://mbed.org/cookbook/Servo

If you have a small unloaded servo I *think* you can run it from USB power supply, but in general you will want an external power supply.

i was pretty concern that im not using the right voltage and might damage my mbed.

also a warning from the link you gave says "A servo requires higher current than the USB port can safely provide" does this mean its not safe to use mbed as a power source for my servo?

i already tested the code from the site, and it worked smoothly, servo motor rotates but i immediately pulled it out after a few seconds.

posted by zild murai 07 Jul 2013

It will depend on the servo you use. As I said, if you use a small servo without load you can *probably* play a bit with it with USB power supply. Even if the load is larger, a USB port should have protection built-in. If you actually want to make something with your servo you certainly need an external power supply.

Damaging the mbed is unlikely with a wrong voltage, just put your supply on the Vin pin and it is allowed to be larger than what your servo accepts.

posted by Erik - 07 Jul 2013
Ney Palma
11 years, 5 months ago.

Hi Zild, you can use the maestro servo controller(msc) for interfacing with up to 6 servos or more:

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1350

The msc can be connected and controlled with the mbed via serial link (TX/RX)

Greetings

P.D.: is always better to use an external supply for the servos because in most cases, the servos need much current to work properly