Does your servo board have a special connector for servo battery? If it does, you need to connect the red wire (positive) of the battery to a switch, then from the switch connect 2 red wires in parallel (and also from the battery black wire (negative) connect 2 other black wires). Form 2 pairs of black+red wires and plug one pair in the servo board battery connector and one pair into the Arduino power connector. Make sure the wires in the pair that goes to the servo board are thick, almost as thick as the battery wires. The pair that goes to the Arduino can be thinner, because Arduino does not need more than an amp to work (needs a lot less, but you will add sensors that will consume power). After you do this, you will not have any power issues with your servos. They will work fine at 7.4V.
thanks for posting that video. after you move leg by hand, it sounds like you are saying “moving (or removing) the power and it moves back”. I assume you are not touching the power switch or resetting the power or restarting the program, correct? and when it moves back, its because the void loop is repeating again, correct? it seems like it takes a long time for it to come back to proper position.
the last void loop you show has the delay(30), I assume that means 30 milliseconds? all the servos I play with use a 20ms delay not 30ms. and the more servos you put in the loop, the less delay you need, because each time you send a command to the other 11 servos, you get a natual delay to the first servo. try reducing the 30 to 20, and adjust delay down from there.
you might want to add an led to blink on or off, or some other way to know when that loops is repeating.
what model servo controller are you using? is it rated for the amount of current you need? the servos I use need about 200mA (I think) when moving. power to the servo should not come from an arduino chip. power to the servo should come from the battery or a voltage regulator.
how about posting a schematic diagram.
I dont think your program is relying on the servo controller to send the pulses. you might need to send a different command to tell the controller to keep sending pulses even when your program moves to the next servo.
what is the range of ms of those servos? again, the servos I have used have a typical range of 600ms to 800ms (clockwise to counterclockwise) for example.
the other thought I had was to test it in the proper orientation, not standing on back two legs while front 2 legs are in the air. does that have different result.
Add LED sounds like a good idea to me. I felt if I force the leg to move by my hand, it drains the power to against me to keep the servo in proper position and because of that it cause the power shortage or something like that. In the video I have battery connected all the time. The last line was 20ms and I change it to 30ms or even 10ms, they don’t make much difference thou.
This is what I have in mind that might solve the problem to seprate the power source from arduino. The current sensor board doesn’t have external power input that I have ordered the one support external power input. I will post the progresss when I have it installed. Thanks for all your help~
I adjusted the output voltage to 6V and the servos work until the battery is depleted. This voltage regulator gives me 4 amps at 6V which is enough for 4 micro, 2 mini and 2 standard size servos. For a full blown hexapod or humanoid, I would NOT use a voltage regulator. Voltage regulator is good only for cheap small size servos that will burn if over powered.
Replace the 4017 ICs, the capacitor is not damaged. Because you reversed the power, the servos probably are damaged, but you have to check.
ALWAYS check the correct polarity as marked on the board. Use the multi-meter to see how the power pins are wired to the pins.
I have plugged the servos backwards (always plug them with the white (yellow or orange) wire towards the microcontroller) in a OOPIC-R board and burned the microcontroller pins. I had to re-wire other pins to the servo connectors, now the board is a mess.
"the servos probably are damaged…" This is kinda scares me!! Hope not. Im gonna get 4017s at local store and see if it works. Hay~ does your email working?
Not exactly the same. The testing program is changing everyday every minutes. The IK programming is like 1000x harder than solving those servo problems. So many Thinking, Calculation, Algebra all kind of math. It’s crazy! I will show you a video soon but I won’t update it cuz I don’t like to have my bot on first page all the time unless I reach certain progress.
BTW, the “switch regulator” is great, works perfectly!! I actually bought another 2 spares for next coming Biped. ; )
