I’m a newbie, so be gentle. I have an SSC32 board and have downloaded the Lynx program to test the servos. When I press the ALL=1500 button I hear the servo move slightly then stop. What is stopping the motor from moving? I’m only using a 9V battery attached to the board.
I have a second question about powering the servos. I am currently just using a 9V battery to test the servos. What are my options for powering an untethered, unplugged hexapod?
Well, most servo problems boil down to two things: underpowered or overbudened.
Your probelm is the latter.
I have truly no idea how many amps a 9V can instantaneously flow, but I’m willing to bet that they’re much less than is required.
What most likely happened was:
You clicked the button, the servo(s) attempted to move.
They ended up drawing all the current that the battery could possibly produce, thus sucking the current away from the SSC-32’s logic section.
Once that happened, the SSC-32 reset, and the servos stopped getting a 1500 pulse command.
You’ll definitely need to power the servos off of a seperate pack of batteries.
Your options are many.
You can go to the local foodstore or radio shack and buy 4-5 rechargeable batteries and make your own pack.
You can buy a pre-made 4-5 cell pack from Lynxmotion or radio shack (I recommend the precursor).
Or, as a temporary testing measure, you can use 4 non-rechargeable Alkaline AA cells.
I would recommend that you get 6V packs.
The more mAh, the better.
Any of the 4-5 cell packs on Lynxmotion will work well with your bot.
I’d recommend NiMh packs over NiCd.
Lithium would be best of all, but you need to buy or make special circuitry for them and be very careful with them (and they’re quite expensive).
Your best option is probably buying the 6V 2800mAh Sub-C packs on Lynxmotion.
