Hi, I’m new, and in the beginning design stages of a project that your site has made seem deceptively easy. I feel a lot like a guy who has spotted a gemstone in the mouth of a shark and is trying to determine if he, indeed, has plenty of time to snatch it out like everyone claims, or if he’s about to contribute to the sharks diet.
The concern I have is this… in my project, there’s a requirement for a servo to pull an arm to control the movement of a hinged lever.
Unfortunately, the same hinge must be used two other ways:
#1- the user must be able to manually move the lever when the servo is stationary. To “pose” the lever in various states. Thereby overpowering the servo.
#2- through normal usage, there is very likely to be conditions where several levers operating in the same space will collide with each other. All of the levers would be controlled by the same board, BUT this collision is expected by the user, and if I DID manage to program to avoid any possibility of this happening, it would defeat the purpose of the collision.
From my limited understanding, manually operating (or defeating!) the servo will risk stripping it. I see that the metal geared servos “stand a better chance” of survival under those circumstances, but I’m hoping to achieve repeated use, and expect these conditions to occur quite often in the lifecycle of the system, so obviously I don’t want this to destroy it.
What am I missing here…? Will a standard rc non-plastic servo handle that kind of abuse?
Do I need a mechanical solution to disengage the servo if it faces resistance of more than a specific force? I see this as being possible, in terms of a spring loaded gearbox… resistance pulling the load off of the servo… resulting in lots of angry clicking. Then do a limit reset, in terms of running the lever to a maximum position, forcing it to disengage again as the servo went to it’s programmed limit. Do they make these, or would I have to come up with something myself?
or-
Do I simply write an error-handling routine to deal with a stopped servo?
or-
Is there a servo that gives feedback to the board with regards to resistance, permitting a more accurate error-handling routine?
As a further note: I’m looking to run the system under USB power on your Micro Maestro board. I have no electric wiring experience, but I’m seeing that your servos are “plug-n-play”, and the programming seems acheivable. As long as I can plug it all together somehow, I’m good… or so I beleive in my ignorance
Any help greatly appreciated! Thanks!