As I discussed in the introduction to servos, one of the consequences of hobby servos’ intended use is that rotation range is limited to about 180 degrees. In this post, I will talk about two exceptions to this general rule: continuous-rotation servos and multi-turn servos. Each of these products loses some features in return for increased rotational range, so none of them are the ideal actuators many would like them to be. There are some specialty servos developed for robot applications that get around the limitations, but those servos are not as standardized and do not really fit into the hobby servo category, so I am not going into any more detail on those beyond mentioning that they exist. Continued…

This Netduino driver by customer Stefan Thoolen supports both the MiniSSC2 and the Pololu protocol for controlling a Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller.

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Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller (assembled)

Mr. Twitchy is a project that uses two Wixels to wirelessly control an electrical stimulation device. The project was featured in Sparkfun New Product post.

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Wixel Programmable USB Wireless Module

Blackbeard’s Chest by SkullTroniX uses two jrk motor controllers with feedback to control linear actuators as part of a spooky animatronic display.

A Mini Maestro 24-channel USB servo controller controls three servos in each of this insectoid robot’s six legs. For more information, see this thread on the Trossen Robotics forums.

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Mini Maestro 24-Channel USB Servo Controller (Assembled)

The Wixel Shield for Arduino that we released today represents a personal milestone because of what I did not do on it: the shield is the first electronic product made by Pololu that I did not design. That’s not to say I did not have some input on it or that other engineers here did not have substantial contributions to other products, but the Wixel Shield is a first because the basic product concept, the circuit design, and physical implementation (i.e. the PCB layout) were all done by someone else. We also just finished a big facility expansion that was taking up a lot of my attention this year, so I have some more time now to think about our design process and what it takes to go from a new idea to a finished product. Continued…

This rotating monitor for an arcade cabinet uses a Simple Motor Controller, a gearmotor with encoders and a Pololu wheel to control the rotation.

Scopefocus is a well-documented project for building a telescope remote based on the Micro Maestro 6-Channel USB servo controller.

Featured link: http://www.scopefocus.info/

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Micro Maestro 6-Channel USB Servo Controller (Assembled)

This Instructable by customer Michael Oz introduces the reader to the Wixel through a series of basic projects.

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Wixel Programmable USB Wireless Module

It is often desirable to control the speed and acceleration of hobby RC servos. Understanding your options can be confusing since there are various speeds involved, many similar terms are used, and the terms are not used consistently by different companies or end users. You might also have an idea of what you want your servo to do without knowing what to call it or how to describe it or how to implement it. To get a good understanding of what is going on, it is helpful to picture the position of your servo in relation to the commands you are sending it. A simple first attempt might look like this: Continued…