Arduino Cookbook

Chapter 8. Physical Output

8.0. Introduction

You can make things move by controlling motors with Arduino. Different types of motors suit different applications, and this chapter shows how Arduino can drive many different kinds of motors.

Motion Control Using Servos

Servos enable you to accurately control physical movement because they generally move to a position instead of continuously rotating. They are ideal for making something rotate over a range of 0 to 180 degrees. Servos are easy to connect and control because the motor driver is built into the servo.

Servos contain a small motor connected through gears to an output shaft. The output shaft drives a servo arm and is also connected to a potentiometer to provide position feedback to an internal control circuit (see Figure 8-1).

Figure 8-1. Elements inside a hobby servo

You can get continuous rotation servos that have the positional feedback disconnected so that you can instruct the servo to rotate continuously clockwise and counterclockwise with some control over the speed. These function a little like the brushed motors covered in Recipe 8.3, except that continuous rotation servos use the servo library code instead of analogWrite.

Servos respond to changes in the duration of a pulse. A short pulse of 1 ms or less will cause the servo to rotate to one extreme; a pulse duration of 2 ms or so will rotate the servo to the other extreme ...