Can the HB-25 used as a standard R/C servo?
w4fej
Posts: 264
The HB-25 sounds to me like it could be plugged directly into a "standard" R/C receiver. Is this true?? In my case it will be driven by a Prop but before I recommend the HB-25 to a friend I wanted to make sure it would work for him. This is for a boat by the way, not an aircraft...
Thanks, Mike B.
Thanks, Mike B.
Comments
I have two HB-25 motor drivers that I'm using in one of my robotics projects.
Others may want to chime in here, but I don't really think that the HB-25 can be plugged directly into a standard R/C receiver
Because
The HB-25 needs to be initialized before the radio signals will make it work.
Once it's initialized, it may work, but I'm thinking Not.
Please look at the HB-25 documentation
This link should get you there., http://www.parallax.com/sites/default/files/downloads/29144-HB-25-Motor-Controller-V1.2.pdf
I'm currently using the HB-25's being driven by a BS1 microcontroller.
I'll be upgrading to Propeller as soon as I get it figured out.
I have several projects going on at the same time.
I'm starting to ramble so:
the moral of this story is to check out the information concerning what is necessary to initialize the HB-25.
I hope this helps you out in some manner.
As Gary mentioned, the HB-25 can have issues at startup but as long as you start the right part of the system first, it should work. (I'm not sure which is supposed to be powered up first the RC receiver or the HB-25.)
OK, thanks to both of you.. The application I was considering for my friend was the rudder control for a large scale R/C tugboat. The friend is not micro controller inclined so I thought he might be able to use the HB-25 instead of a very expensive "real" servo. ($100.00+) The actual "rudder" is a trolling motor so a standard R/C servo doesn't have the torque and won't do the job...
I'm doing the same thing but under the control of the Prop using a jotstick with encoder feedback for position and optical interrupters for range limits.. .
Thanks again, Mike B.
quite a bit of torque.
I ended up purchasing something called XQ-S5040D from HobbyKing.
I do realize that HobbyKing has had some not so good reviews lately.
I did not have trouble with HobbyKing, but this is the 1st item I've purchased from them.
While I've not yet tested it in real world conditions, the specs from XQ says that it should
give 39.8kg/cm of output force.
It ended up costing me approx $50.00 including shipping.
I've been planning on building an RC boat, but that has been put on the back burner until I finish
my robot platforms and bike directional projects.
39.8kg/cm is pretty much torque for a hobby servo.
The only thing I noticed so far with it, is that I cannot manually rotate the output shaft.
It must have a pretty tremendous gear ratio.
The HB-25 doesn't not include a motor. You'd need to add your own DC geared motor. The HB-25 does not give any sort of position feedback. You'd still need to use encoders or some other sort of position feedback.
It sounds like the XQ-S5040D garyg is using would be a good option to consider.
That's a very interesting servo. I'm going to make sure to add one to my next HobbyKing order (I haven't had any trouble with any of my many HobbyKing orders).
This servo costs a lot less but it doesn't have nearly the same amount of torque.