I have PWM speed controllers much like the ones in servos that I would like to use to drive some DC motors. The problem is I need to drive the servo off an alternate power source then that of the microcontroller, is there any way to do this?
The speed controller has three wires, black, red and white. I tried hooking up battery pack to the black and red wires and the PWM signal to the white wire but I think the reason it didn’t work is because the PWM signal didn’t have a reference to it’s own ground?
You aren’t ever driving servos directly from the microcontroller for power. The power normally comes from batteries. The white or yellow wire is the only wire the microcontroller has control over - that is the signal wire.
All grounds should be connected together, but power can be independent. You need a common ground, which is why it is often called common, for things to work properly.
[/code] tags, you can do ASCII diagrams easily. Everything within the [code] tags will be monospaced font (think Notepad), and extra spaces will be saved.
Yes, that is correct (assuming you aren’t going to connect the Vs+ and - lines together as possibly is shown in the picture )
You in all your bot, you should connect all the grounds. This gives the entire bot one “0V Reference” to measure from. Just don’t tie the positive sides together if there is a potential difference between them.