Not sure if this is the right place, new to pololu
I have a 24 servo maestro board and have successfully started controlling servos, sequences etc and now I’d like to get a little more complex.
I’d like to make a more powerful servo using a dc motor / worm gearbox and be able to control it quite accurately but easily using the same software you supply. Maybe getting it so set positions of 1 degree.
Would this be possible by fitting an encoder to the output of the gearbox so it’s slow moving and accurate to give me positioning data ?
Or would I need to go down a different route ?
Look forward to any help ?
Thanks
John
Hello, John.
The Maestro servo controllers do not have interrupts available for measuring devices like quadrature encoders reliably, and should not be used to control a DC motor directly. One option might be using something like a RoboClaw motor controller for handling the encoder and position control of the motor. The RoboClaw can be configured to accept RC hobby pulses, so you should be able to control it from a Maestro channel. I recommend reading through the RoboClaw motor controller user manual located under the “Resources” tab of any of the RoboClaw product pages to see if you think this might be appropriate for your application.
Our jrk motor controllers can also be used to essentially create a servo using a brushed DC gearmotor. However, please note that to do this, the jrk needs to have analog voltage feedback, so you would need to use something like a potentiometer for feedback since pulses from a quadrature encoder would not work with the jrk for closed-loop position control.
Brandon
Brill thanks, I thought that would be the case, I’ll have a look at the links you suggested.
John
