555 timer circuit for servos

Thread Starter

MoC

Joined Mar 17, 2010
2
Hi everyone,

This is my first post here so hello to everybody. I've read a lot on here but decided to post after running into some trouble with a servo timer circuit.

I am working on a university project which conists of building a robot that can climb stairs without using wheels or caterpillar tracks. I've come up with a design but I am stuck at the electronics part.

Effectively I am looking to build (what i thought would be) a very simple control circuit for the servo motors. Here's the circuit diagram I am using.



I've currently got C1 as 0.47uF, R2 as 56K and R1 is a 1K resistor with a 47K pot in series. The diode is a 1N4148. This gives me a great circuit with a constant "low" time of (ln(2)*56000*(470E-9) =18ms) and "high" time that can vary by adjusting the pot at R1. Vs is 5V.

I connected up an old (spare) futaba servo to this circuit and got the servo to move as I moved the potentiometer; just as I had wanted. Great! Or so I thought....

When I then tried to connect the higher torque digital servo (a Towardpro MG996R) that I will use in the robot it won't work. The servo kinda jitters around and barely responds to signal changes. I have access to an oscilloscope and can observe the waveform as I connect the servo. At first I have a clear distinct digital pulse (width ~1.5ms with rest time ~18.5ms). When I connect the control wire of the MG996R (with the oscilloscope probe at the junction of pin 3 (out of 555) and control wire from servo) the signal goes crazy! It appears that the overall high voltage level drops but the signal no longer contains any sort of regular pulse. Instead the signal looks messy with random (lower) high voltage pulses all over the place. The servo begins to shake and jitter randomly.

I am running the servo of a completely different power supply to the circuit.

I have read, on this website, that apparently this is a known problem. See this quote from user "jpanhalt"

The problem with 555-based controllers is jitter with some high-end servos, namely the digital servos. I have not had that problem with a 16F628 PIC controller.
link to thread:
http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?p=104945#post104945

I have went back to test the circuit with the older futaba servo again and it still works great. I just can't get it to work with the MG996R.

One theory I've had was that possibly the control wire from the servo was attempting to draw (too much) current from the output (pin 3) of the 555. The 555 is apparently rated as being able to supply a max of 200ma from its output though the more current you draw from its output the lower the voltage of the "high" pulse. I therefore attempted to run the control circuit at 15V while maintaining 5V across the servo from a different power supply. This may have made things slightly better (hard to tell really) but things are still jittery and not good enough.

Any ideas on how I could control this servo (the Towardpro MG996R) using this 555 timer circuit? I'm begining to get very nervous. I have to present this robot to the rest of my year next wednesday and at the moment I have nothing to show. User jpanhalt suggested using PICs instead but I don't think I have enough time for this. More importantly, I had a budget for this project which I blew on buying 12 MG996R servos, 20 555 chips, resistor, pots, capacitors, boards etc. Once I get this one circuit working I will need to make 11 more as the final design will consist of 12 interlocked modules each with a seperate servo and controller circuit. I don't think I have enough money/time to start from scratch using PICs.

One more thing: I had a spare 8 channel serial port servo driver board lying around. Both the old futaba servo and the new MG996R run very smoothly when controlling them from this board (via a computer program). I checked the output of this board (using the oscilloscope) and it's virtually identical to the output of my timmer circuit. Yet somehow my timmer circuit won't run the MG996R. Odd ey?

Any suggestions on things I could try to make it work? Or perhaps a link to a location where I can find out more about the control wire and how much current a servo is likely to draw via the control wire? Or perhaps you know how important it really is to have a constant 50Hz refresh rate on the pulses. In the current circuit (using only one 555) the overall frequency of the signal varies slightly as the pulse width is varied. The older futaba servo doesn't seem to mind though. I've really hit a brick wall here. I don't understand what's happening :(

Thank you very much for reading and thank you even more for posting a reply,

MoC
 

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Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,408
Couple of comments. R1 needs a series resistor to prevent it from ever going to zero ohms. If this happens the 555 will fry.

How much current are you really drawing from the output. You can put a 0.1Ω resistor between the output pin3 and the servo and measure it on the scope. A guess would be you're not drawing too much current.

There are other ways to do the same thing with a 555 than would probably be a lot more stable. A simple monostable after a stable oscillator comes to mind.

First thing though, make sure it isn't a current issue. I have some simple drivers that would help with that.

Bill's Index

555 Servo Controller

My Cookbook

The 555 Projects
 

Thread Starter

MoC

Joined Mar 17, 2010
2
Hi Bill,

Thanks a lot for the tips!

I've got a 1KΩ resistor in series with the 47kΩ potentiometer to save the 555 from dying. I did (briefly) run the circuit without that in place so maybe I'll try a new chip in the lab tomorrow.

This might be a dumb question but how do you measure current with an oscilloscope? I've only ever measured voltages.

Also:
First thing though, make sure it isn't a current issue. I have some simple drivers that would help with that.
What kind of drivers do you mean?

Lastly, I'd be happy to make a slightly more elaborate circuit with two 555s but I'm just worried that wouldn't solve the problem. It just seems so odd that one servo works great and another acts like it's having a heart attack with the same control signal.

Again, thanks so much for your help,

MoC
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,408
If you have 1V across a .1Ω resistor you have 10Amps. This is how most current meters work.

I don't really have enough experience with servo's to be of much help, but it wouldn't take long to try the circuit out and see if it makes a difference. Using one component to do double duty is a good idea, unless it doesn't work.

There are some really good animatronic sites out there, for Halloween mostly. This is where my servo link came from.
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,208
A 'driver' is an IC or circuit that powers the motor. It can take a small signal and amplify it for proper motor control.

It is also a guy/girl that drives you around. :)
 
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