The Maker Show

The Maker Show: Episode 3 - Arduino and Servos

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Description

Now that Brian Sherwin showed you how to blink an LED and David Crook discussed electronics, let's turn to Servo Motors and Pulse Width Modulation! 
 
In this episode of The Maker Show, DC Micro Servos will be discussed. These tiny controllers are inexpensive, cost  less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and pack a powerful punch with 1.54 Kg-cm of torque, and weight in with a mass of 8.6 grams! 
 
Servo Motors were first conceived by Nikolai Tesla who designed the AC types of Servo Motors. He used an ingenious rotary sensor design that was used to create precision gyro systems that took humans to the moon!
 
The servo motor will be a nice addition to your blinking LED that you created in the last show.  With a little work, you could use a potentiometer to turn the servo motor.
 
The show also takes to the beach where the design was tested successfully in the California surf.
 
Here is the timeline, and there is a quiz at the end of the video, really:
 
[00:00] - Introduction
[01:40] - Servo Motors
[02:45] - Motors & Servos
[06:20] - Servo Communications using PWM
[07:47] - Code the Servo!
[08:48] - Electrical and Mechanical considerations, important for pure computer scientists!
[11:28] - Where to use Servo Motors
[13:04] - Wiring the Arduino
[15:14] - Conclusion
 
The servo I used was supplied with the Grove Shield kit and I purchased it through Amazon, the price of the Grove Shield kit might seem expensive, but I have made extensive use of the kit to illustrate how IOT and Azure works. You can also use Arduino UNO if you use the Grove shield.  If you don't use the Grove Shield than this lab will work with any Arduino, Launchpad or Particle Photon.
 
Have fun.
 
Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below and let us know what topics you'd like to see covered in future episodes of The Maker Show. Bookmark http://themakershow.io to come back to the main show page.

 

Tags:

maker, Arduino , IoT

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The Discussion

  • User profile image
    FrankLaVigne

    Great video, Sam!

  • User profile image
    Ardude

    Great video. Very helpful tutorial, but i'd suggest using codebender for the programming part. it's much easier than the arduino IDE.

  • User profile image
    MrSheep

     Well done Sam!
    It would be nice to see the little floatable in action to better understand the role the servo is playing in the device.
    Sam, can you tell us more about the water tight housings you are using and where you get them?
    I am working on some IOT projects around my dock and I am looking for ways to waterproof some of my citizen science experiments.
    Thanks.

  • User profile image
    SocalSam_

    Yes, I will post the floating video on my blog later this week, as you might expect, video recording in surf, even mild surf is difficult to do, so I will do the video in a pool. 

    As to the box itself, I purchased it at Home Depot and it was a "Husky" set, that contained two boxes, one inside of the other.  Unfortunately, I believe that these were a special run as I have tried to buy a few more and couldn't find them online or off, at the Husky site or elsewhere.  Sorry, they are awesome for this kind of thing.

    I will post when I get the "floating" video completed and on Channel 9.

  • User profile image
    MrSheep

    , SocalSam_ wrote

    As to the box itself, I purchased it at Home Depot and it was a "Husky" set, that contained two boxes, one inside of the other.  Unfortunately, I believe that these were a special run as I have tried to buy a few more and couldn't find them online or off, at the Husky site or elsewhere. 

    Thanks Sam, our local Home Depot still stocks the 5x7 ones (which appears to be the same one you use for this project). I just grabbed a few. They also had an 11 inch version that was sold separately, no twin packs that I saw. So if you are still looking for more of them next time you are in Redmond you may want to check with the nearest Home Depot.

    Looking forward to the pool video as well as any future surf science IOT projects that make it to air.

  • User profile image
    jota

    I too wouold have liked to see a more step-by-step example. Appart from that, another good video.

  • User profile image
    PocketCast Patron

    I have listen to the first few shows on Pocketcast. I was thinking that these shows would be awesome as a video podcast instead of audio. Any way to make this happen?

    Thank You
    PP

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