11 Servos on red back spider (ATmega1280), how to power?

Community General Discussions
1

Hi,

 

I'm stuck! I am trying to connect 11 servos to the red back spider board, and as soon as I turn on the power (up to 12v) the servos all jerk and move like crazy and the board turns itself off again. 

 

I'm not quite sure what I am doing wrong or how I need to power 11 servos (9g micro servos) without the board crashing? 

Anyone can help me out?

 

2

Hi Badji, thanks for your

Hi Badji, thanks for your comments, the UBEC looks quite cool, can see how that can help improving battery life when powering servos. 

At the moment I’m actually using a 9v power adapter connected to the wall, so I was hoping that would be able to provide enough continuous power to prevent the servos from freaking out.

It works fine with 5 servos, but the board doesn’t seem to be able to handle 11…

 

3

Ahh thanks, mine is 1000mA

Ahh thanks, mine is 1000mA as well, so that would be the problem…

So the best thing to do would be to get some good lipo batteries?

 

4

Okay, I’ve got 6 1.2v 2900mA

Okay, I’ve got 6 1.2v 2900mA Ni-Mh AAs here, will try with them for now as that’s all I have at home, but have used them in other things before and they always seem to drain really quickly

might be where that UBEC could come in handy…

5

Just tried with the 6x

Just tried with the  6x 1.2v  2900mA Ni-Mh AAs and the servo.s don’t freak out as much as before but the arduino resets itself pretty much every second…

 

is my battery pack still not powerful enough? 

6

Would it make a difference

Would it make a difference if I try to power the ATmega through a seperate source? Or does the controller help to distribute the power to the servos?

7

Thanks for all your help,

Thanks for all your help, but I must really be doing something wrong…When I connect the batteries to the servos directly they also freak out, even when the spider is off 

Any ideas of what my problem could be or any info I could give that would make it easier to identify a potential issue?

8

Thanks OddBot, where would I

Thanks OddBot, where would I put the resistors? Literally inbetween the servo and the output pin on the board?