I plan on picking up a ssc-32 and need it to operate about 14 servos with each servo cable being about 8 to 10 feet in length. Is this going to be an issue with signal loss over that distance?
Thanks!
It’s ging to be an issue with interference. At that length, the servc wire become a big antenna, picking up any surrounding noise or interference.
Braiding the three wires helps alot and you can solve some interference with Ferrite rings and some creative routing through them. Ferrite rings are usually the best for reducing or eliminating interference in high power setups or long servo leads.
The guys here might have a more high tech solution. But I’ve eliminated interference in 8 foot servo leads by using 2 Ferrite rings on each lead and braiding the power wires together for the 4 servos I used, and braiding the 4 signal wires seperately.
You will also get some voltage drop at that distance if you are using the really thin cheap servo wire. Use the heavy duty stuff. I forget if it’s 20 or 22 gauge.
you can probably get away with running two (2) twisted pair 22-24 awg shielded cable. put power and ground on one pair, and the signal and ground on the other. Then take the drain wire from the shield to either your power supply ground or chassis/earth ground, can’t say which without seeing the entire system but either way the drain runs on a separate wire and don’t just connect it to the same ground the servo connections are using. I was going to go see if I could find a cable to suggest but it is not clear if all of the servos are at one general location (allowing you to use one large cable with multiple pairs) or each is individually off on its own in which case you need individual 2-pair cables. You could also try using cat5 cable which has 4 pairs of 24 AWG if you double the pairs up.
I’ve got a servo that operates a window blind that uses ~13 feet of cat3 phone wire and have never noticed any issues with the setup.
thanks for the replys.
I figured I’d try the Cat5E stuff with the shielding. Each servo is going to need its own run. The idea is going to be for camera positioning so once its set there wont be much use, I just dont want them flying all over the place with noise. I’ll try Cat5 first then go to the AWG if that fails and let you know.
thanks again