Make: Robotic Arms

4 Make: Robotic Arms

to need much more accuracy if we want to control a

robotic arm. Thankfully, your standard servo is much

more than a simple DC motor. The internal DC motor

within the servo (Figure

1-3

) is first connected to

a set of output gears. Generally speaking, gears

are designed to do one of two things—increase or

decrease the speed of a DC motor, which we usually

describe as revolutions per minute (RPM), or the

strength of the motor, which we usually describe

as torque. The gears in a servo are almost always

designed to increase the torque of the servo’s output

shaft.

Gears are very useful. Anytime you have a moving

part, from something ...