Adafruit 16-Channel Servo Driver with Arduino - Power questi

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joeroyo
 
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Adafruit 16-Channel Servo Driver with Arduino - Power questi

Post by joeroyo »

Hello all,

I'm working on a project where I will have 39 servos attached to 3 Adafruit 16-Channel Servo Drivers that are in a chained configuration (13 servos per servo driver).

I'm currently speccing out a shopping list of parts that I will need and I am currently a little stumped when it comes to the external (non-arduino) power.

In the setup guide https://learn.adafruit.com/16-channel-p ... king-it-up it suggests that when chaining, only the first driver board will require a power terminal and that all subsequent driver boards simply take power from that one source.

As I am more from the programming background than the electrical engineering side I wanted to make sure I'm not going to blow everything up :D

In terms of servos we are planning on getting 39 of these: http://www.servodatabase.com/servo/futaba/s3001

I've already tested one servo running continuously to see if it is fit for our application and it seems great.

In the setup guide it mentions the possibility of adding a capacitor "n * 100uF where n is the number of servos is a good place to start - eg 470uF or more for 5 servos"
Would that be one capacitor per driver board?.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Adafruit 16-Channel Servo Driver with Arduino - Power qu

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

Blowing things up is less likely than having too little power for the servos to run.

You can connect power to one board and pass it along to others, but the ease/wisdom of doing that depends on the amount of power the servos will need.

Start by connecting an ammeter to your servo and seeing how much current it uses, then multiply that by 13 to find out how much total current each control board will need. That will help you decide what kind of power supply to use, and whether it sounds like a better idea to use a single supply or multiple supplies.

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