Servo Motor SG-5010

Servo motor is great for experimenting or medium duty applications.

DESCRIPTION

The Servo Motor SG-5010 is a workhorse standard servo with a range of 180 degrees that can be used in many applications and is one of the best values for a general purpose servo.

PACKAGE INCLUDES:

• 1 SG-5010 Servo motor with attached 9.5″ control cable
• 4 arms/horns for various interface applications
• Screws for mounting arms to the servo and mounting the servos
• 4 rubber and 4 brass bushings for mounting.

KEY FEATURES OF SERVO MOTOR SG-5010:

• Medium size servo
• Strong, can lift 8lbs positioned 1cm from center of shaft
• 180 degree rotation
• Nylon gears
• Analog drive

These servos work well for both servo experimentation as well as incorporation into many medium duty applications where its moderate size and good torque characteristics can be put to use. Gears are nylon which is the case with most lower cost Servos.

Servo motors can be commanded to go to a specific position and so are the usual go-to motor when accurate positioning is needed, such as for turning the front wheels on an RC model for steering or pivoting a sensor to look around on a robotic vehicle.

Servo motors are comprised of a DC motor, gears, a potentiometer to determine its position and a small electronic control board.

Standard servos have a specified limited range.  This is usually specified as 180 degrees.  Frequently the actual range is not quite the full 180 degrees and is limited by the mechanical gears and potentiometer used for position sensing that is contained in the device.  If the motor is run all the way to 0 or 180, it may start making unhappy sounds and start vibrating as it tries to drive to a position that it cannot get to.  This causes a high stall current condition and has the potential of stripping gears and damaging the motor, so it is best to either drive it to a safely reduced range such as 20-160 or experiment a bit to determine the actual usable range if you want to maximize the range.

Servos expect to see a pulse on their PWM pin every 20mSec.  The pulse is active HIGH and the width of the pulse determines the position (angle) of the servos shaft.  The pulse can vary between 1mSec and 2mSec.  A 1mSec pulse positions the shaft at 0 degrees.  A 1.5mSec pulse positions the shaft at 90 degrees (centered in its range).  A 2mSec pulse positions the shaft at 180 degrees.  Pulses with values between these can be used to position the shaft arbitrarily.

Motor Connections

The built-in cable has a 3-pin female connector that is usually mated with a male header.

1×3 Connector

• Brown = Ground
• Red = 5V
• Orange = PWM Signal

OUR EVALUATION RESULTS:

In our testing these SG-5010 servos can lift over 8lbs that is positioned on an arm 1cm out from the shaft , so they are fairly strong motors.  We also didn’t have any issues with stripping the nylon gears when pushed to their max.

The servo runs on 5V with a current draw about 10mA at idle and 100mA to 300mA when being commanded to move depending on how it is being operated.  Current draw can get up to a maximum of 600mA under a stall condition.  It is not recommended to try to power one of these directly off of an Arduino board as it is likely to cause erratic behavior.  It is always best to drive them directly off of a power supply rather than trying to power from the on-board Arduino regulator whenever possible

The program below can be used to exercise a servo motor by using a potentiometer to set the position of the servo.  This setup can also be used to determine the limits of the servos range by running the servo near its end-points and observing where it mechanically stops relative to the position command that is being issued.  The constants MIN_VALUE and MAX_VALUE are used to set the 2 end-points in the program below.

Servo Motor SG-5010 Test Program

/*
  Exercise Servo motor
  Use a potentiometer on pin A0 to command a servo attached to pin 9 to move to
  a specific position.  The Servo MIN_VALUE and MAX_VALUE can be adjusted to 
  avoid hitting the servo stops
  Uses built-in Servo.h library
*/
#include "Servo.h"
#define SERVO_PIN 9   // Can use any PWM pin
#define POT_PIN A0    // Can use any analog pin
#define MIN_VALUE 0   // Minimum Servo position
#define MAX_VALUE 180 // Maximum Servo position

Servo servo;          // creates servo object used to control the servo motor
int value_pot = 0;    // Current value of the potentiometer
int value_servo = 0;  // Current servo position
int value_servo_old = 0; // Used to hold old servo value to look for change.
//===============================================================================
//  Initialization
//===============================================================================
void setup()
{
  servo.attach(SERVO_PIN); // assigns PWM pin to the servo object
  Serial.begin (9600);     // Set Serial Monitor window comm speed
}
//===============================================================================
//  Main
//===============================================================================
void loop()
{
  value_pot = analogRead(POT_PIN); // Reads value of the potentiometer. Return value = 0 to 1023
  value_servo = map(value_pot, 0, 1023, MIN_VALUE, MAX_VALUE); // remap pot value to servo value
  if (value_servo != value_servo_old) {   // Only do something if there's a change in the servo position
    servo.write(value_servo);        // Update servo position
    Serial.print("Pot Value: ");  // Update Serial Monitor window with what's going on
    Serial.print(value_pot);
    Serial.print("tServo Value: ");
    Serial.println(value_servo);
    value_servo_old = value_servo;
    delay(25); // give servo time to move
  }
}

BEFORE THEY ARE SHIPPED, THESE MOTORS ARE:

• Inspected
• Basic operation of servo motor verified

Notes: 

1. None

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS