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Replacement servo?

Pixy Hardware
#1

Good morning, I would like to ask about the pixy2 pan/tilt servos. One of mines apparently ceased to work, not sure whether by my fault, which is possible, although I was being quite careful in my tests. The other is fine, as well as are both the servo ports.

Can you please advise what the specs of the supplied servos - the voltage, current and reasonable torque to move the rig are, so that I can possibly get a new one somewhere (or is there any warranty replacement possible?). I would like to give my Pixy a restart, but suspect that a 9g SG90, which I generally use, might well kill the board for good…

Thanks in advance!

#2

Hello,
The servos are the “9g” type, somewhat generic, but have good performance – speed, voltage and power. I don’t think the SG90 will harm Pixy if you want to give it a try.

Where and when did you purchase your pan-tilt?

Edward

#3

Hi, Edward, thanks for the quick response. Looking thru my meails, the PayPal receipt says “Seller: Charmed Labs”, another email suggests it was throught eBay and the date is 2018-05-12. I spent some days checking what it can do, etc. and since that servo died,I only occassionally spent time googling (mostly unsuccessfully) for some specs.

…cos somewhere here in the forum I found that there is about 1A available to feed both servos but a single SG90s may take 700 mA … so althought by size it does fit in good, I am being cautious since I once fried an arduino this way.

What would be your suggestion then, please?

Thanks…

Michal

#4

Hello,
Hmm, I would guess that if the SG90 draws too much current, it will just cause Pixy to “brown out” without any permanent effects, but perhaps the SG90 inserts noise or something that can harm things (like your Arduino).

Edward

#5

Hi, Edward, well, based on what I read to the topic, the Arduino was basically fried by the servo (two of them in fact) drawing too much current from the pin. Actually, the arduino survived but the onboard regulator was fried, for which reason I cannot program it over the usb cable any more. I can presumably do so by connecting its pins to another arduino and load the sketch over serial (but never have).

With that experience I grabbed the pan/tilt rig becouse it was clear that the board can power both servos directly good. Now, having read that max 1A can be fed, I am reluctant to attach the SG90 without a good level of certainity, that I am not losing the entire rig.

But overall the pixy2 servo shell looks pretty much the same as the SG90`s indeed and perhaps with low load (moving the light camera, that is) the current draw will not be as high. Thus my question is, would you be enough certain with the SG90, that using it would not void the warranty?

Thanks in advance!

Michal

#6

Hi Michal,
The Pixy’s regulator has thermal protection, so I’m pretty confident you’re not going to damage the regulator. It’s hard for me to give a blessing because I’m not sure what forms are required :slight_smile: But I’d give it a try.

Edward