18 May 2014
period so that we can use an angle as a parameter to set
the angle of the servomotor. We will learn to do this in
the following labs.
What is Inside Our Servomotor?
The following materials will save you from tearing
apart your servomotor to see how it works. Not that you
shouldn’t do that, but I’d suggest waiting until you’ve
done all the labs in this
chapter and in Chapter 6.
You know ... just in case
you break something.
Figure 18 shows the
servomotor in the Arduino
101 Projects kit that is
available from the Nuts & Volts Webstore. The three white
pieces are called horns, and are attached to the
servomotor shaft with a small screw. The large screws are
used to attach the servomotor to a frame or base. The
horns are used to provide attachment points for rods that
are used in RC models to control the position of things
such as rudders and elevators on model aircraft.
In Figure 19, you can see the internals of the
servomotor
through the
transparent plastic
with the label
removed. We took
off the bottom
screws as shown in
Figure 20 which
allows us to
remove both the
top and bottom of
the servomotor
case as shown in
Figure 21.
Figures 22 and
; FIGURE 20: Servo
screws removed.
; FIGURE 22:
Servo top off.
; FIGURE 21: Servo top and
bottom removed.
; FIGURE 24:
Servo bottom
removed.
; FIGURE 25: Servo
PCB and motor
removed.
; FIGURE 26:
Servo PCB top
and bottom.
; FIGURE 27: Servo potentiometer.
; FIGURE 23: Servo side
with top and bottom off.
