Overview
Things
Story

What is a servo motor
Components
Connections
How does the servo library work

Published August 6, 2018 © GPL3+

How to Use Servo Motors with Arduino

This tutorial will teach you how to use servo motors with Arduino.

BeginnerProtip90,040

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino UNO

Any Arduino/Genuino will do.

Servos (Tower Pro MG996R)

Male/Male Jumper Wires

SparkFun Breadboard Power Supply 5V/3.3V

You will need this if you don't use a Sg90 TowerPro Servo Motor

Breadboard (generic)

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Arduino Web Editor

Any of these will do

Story

What is a servo motor?

A servo motor is a motor that works in angles between 0° and 180°.

A servo motor is a motor that can be controlled by a microcontroller such as:

Arduino
Raspberry Pi Pico
Micro:Bit

by sending pulses to the controller in the motor.

It has a small DC motor which only needs about 35 mA. It also has some gears and a potentiometer so that it can know which angle it's on.

Components

You'll need:

An Arduino (any Arduino will do as long as its 9th pin is a PWM pin)
A servo motor
Some jumper wires
5V 1A power source (you won't need this if you are using a single servo)

Connections

Connect the servo motor like this:

Signal cable (orange one) ==> D9 on Arduino
Power cable (red one) ==> 5v pin on Arduino
Ground cable (black or brown one) ==> ground pin on Arduino

How does the servo library work?

These are the classes and functions in Servo library:

Servo x;

x = the name that you'll use when calling the servo to do something.

x.attach(y);

y = the pin to attach servo.

x.write(pos);

pos = the angle that you want your servo motor to go (between 0° and 180°).

Code

Using_Servo_Motors

#include <Servo.h>

Servo myservo;  // create servo object to control a servo
// twelve servo objects can be created on most boards

int pos = 0;    // variable to store the servo position

void setup() {
  myservo.attach(9);  // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object
}

void loop() {
  for (pos = 0; pos <= 180; pos += 1) { // goes from 0 degrees to 180 degrees
    // in steps of 1 degree
    myservo.write(pos);              // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
    delay(15);                       // waits 15ms for the servo to reach the position
  }
  for (pos = 180; pos >= 0; pos -= 1) { // goes from 180 degrees to 0 degrees
    myservo.write(pos);              // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
    delay(15);                       // waits 15ms for the servo to reach the position
  }
}

Credits

Arca

1 project • 47 followers

How to Use Servo Motors with Arduino

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

What is a servo motor?

Components

Connections

How does the servo library work?

Schematics

Schematics

Code

Using_Servo_Motors

Credits

Arca

Comments

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How to Use Servo Motors with Arduino

How to Use Servo Motors with Arduino

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

What is a servo motor?

Components

Connections

How does the servo library work?

Schematics

Schematics

Code

Using_Servo_Motors

Credits

Arca

Comments

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