I am sure that I speak for thousands of people out there when i say that I look forward to my email notifications for the two videos of the week. And, I am sure that I speak for thousands of us when I say that I/we love Flite Test. You epitomize all the good things about a hobby. "Making memories", if I may add "by making stuff" (and then playing with it! ) There is nothing that I need right now from Flite Test, but I will buy another t-shirt the next time I am at the hobby shop. The knowledge and enjoyment that I get from these folks is priceless. I feel that we should all do our own little part to help these guys. They spend all of their time trying to help us. Thank you to the Joshes, Alex, Peter, David, Eric, and all the rest, including wives (especially) and family. Sincerely, Sean O'Keefe
I've repaired the gears on a dozen servos. When my brain loses its short term memory function I will open up another servo to use as a model so the gears go in correctly. I have an ancient copy of Radio Control Model magazine with an article on how to do this. Peter's explanation is just as useful. Practice on an old standard servo; they're bigger,hence easier to work on. Nice job on an arcane subject.
Isn't that more work? What is the function of the pot? Does it work like this, when there's power to the motor, we read the resistance. Based on the resistance we control the logic/movement/position
How would you modify the servo to spin 2-3 turns only in each direction?. Like a sail winch servo may be. Using the servo limit or travel adjustment. ?. Any help is appreciated thanks all before hand
I'm finding that the potentiometer drifts with the 9 gram servo. I sent a 90 degree (centered) command when I glued the pot. When I start the motor 'cold' at 90, it might 'click' every few seconds, or even turn slowly. Then, after running for a minute, the 'stop' is now at 92. After 5 minutes, it starts running sporadically and "stop" is now at 91, or 90, or even 89. If you need a reliable 'stop', it's probably best to add a transistor, so that the 5V supply voltage is only applied, when a value other than 'center' (90 degrees) is sent. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to test a dedicated continuous motion servo, to see if they perform better (I'm guessing they added a bit of extra 'dead' zone' to avoid this issue). No free lunch, I guess...
hi grate video I've done this before for model boats and robotics, I then went to the next step try swoping the potential resister with a multy tern trimming pot you get 15 to 20 terns ,then fit a cog or threaded rod and you get endless uses. or have the pot on a short cable and you can get feedback at the pivotal point .hopefully this will be of interest to someone .
I'd like to add a word of warning for people that are planning to do this to their servos. At least for the 9g servos, the dead space will drift over time. What I mean by this, is that after modifying and reassembling the servo, it will sit there, powered, not moving, however after a few second it may start to move on it's own. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster. It drifts over time. This is probably not an issue when using it for a wheel motor (like in the little car), however when using in situations that require no motion (such as a sailboat winch) it's not the best idea. The way to get around this is a bit more complex. You have to modify the potentiometer such that it can move slightly due to the friction on the shaft, but make it stop about half way of the maximum travel in each direction. This will introduce negative feedback for the center of the servo's range, but allow the full, continuous rotation at the extremes.
I am making a camera slider with a continuous servo and a servo tester. Q. is there any way I can make it stop or change direction when it reaches the other end? of course I can Wire it so that there is contact on the end of the route, or place a button which it will touch and press, but what signal should it output?
i tried doing this on a tower pro 9g servo, thing is that once i glue the potentiometer and put the case back on the servo will start to spin slowly in one direction, i then have to trim it a bit to stay put but then after a minute it starts spinnig again. any idea on how to solve this issue?
With this mod you could make a camera focus/look at one point and circle around that point with a fixed wing. This would be great for DIY search and rescue!!! (CAN YOU MAKE A VID OF THAT BUILD)???? PLS :)
Just wondering, other than reduced complexity....what is the benefit of using a modified servo for continuous rotation vs say a brushless rc motor + esc? More torque from the servo because of the gearing? Or very little difference between the two?
Having followed this guide, I"m having trouble getting the servos to stop. Alone they stop okay, but I'm using a mixer, as I have in the past, to make robot control easier. -After short time manuvering both servos will continue to drive at a slow rate. Did I do something wrong or is this not an issue you've had?
... nice solution guys :-) ... works for a lot circumstances ... but it's not working like a normal servo any more and returns into neutral position after the control does it ;-)
so, using this method to create a motor, can one have it to go in one direction, stop it for a set amount of time, and then run it in the other direction? Can it be placed on a 3 position toggle switch of the transmitter?
Is there a way to do this and get nice speed control? the way you have done it would only give speed control when the input is not outside the P band for the PID control (or the equivalent). It would also vary with load. Perhaps there is something you could replace the pot with? that gives a resistance proportional to the shaft speed?
Thing is though these are not proper continuous rotation servos. They are just geared down motors with no feedback control. A real continuous rotation servo should have a rotatory encoder for velocity control.
So basically it's turned a servo into a left or right turning geared motor without the servo capabilities of "knowing position". So it's not really a 360 servo, just a motor.
+Franky Doodle I don't think so. While you can change the speed and the direction they are moving, they don't have any feedback control after you disabled the potentiometer. So they don't "know" at what position they are at.
"Each servo design is different" is the sufficient condition of "not all servo designs are the same". different=not the same!=not A the same So here's a more tautological version: Each servo design is different, so all servo designs are different.
+Balu Ok...First of all...thanks for the reply. So I did 2 servos. First one basically don't turn either way as smooth as the video shows. It seems to be turning with friction and I can feel the motor heating up. I did another one with a different approach and now it turns 1 way fine, but when I reverse the direction, it does the same thing, it does not spin smooth and will slowly built up heat, but not as fast as the first one. Anyone can point out what I did wrong here???
Could you guys consider a quad parachute? I'm sure it would be no trouble for you, me on the other hand......not so much. I can see the market for it, it would be great to not bash your new 1k quad into a thousand pieces, or worse, bash someones head or the neighbors dog into a thousand pieces. And if you fly a dji like I do, they're prone to falling out of the sky. Something simple, either one that detects a sudden drop in altitude, or one with a controller you can hit if you see trouble coming. Just a thought.
+Dillon Lim No, they do tilt and roll, but not by using a servo. Quadcopters only have four motors. For maneuvers they speed up or slow down the motors. To tilt forwards, they slow down the front motors and speed up the back motors. To roll one side is slowed down and the other side is sped up.
I wouldn't call this a 360° Servo. You can't tell it to go to a certain position. I would call this a "geared dc motor" and I think you can buy them out of the box. Are servos much cheaper? If not, I don't see an other reason in this than playing around (which is still a reason).
+juschu85 Cheap servos are under £1 and most rc people have spares so no need to spend on more crap to experiment rather than research, buy, wait and then mod. Is there simple plug and play way to do this with a servo and designate 180 or 360 stops but still have free flowing for infinite turns? That would be helpful
+Beacon of Wierd The benefit is the torque now available. Because of the gearing, the little high-speed motor drives a much lower speed output shaft at a much higher torque.
+ron045 This, so badly this. However, if it was 300-350 degrees, with actual servo centering it would be worth it. As there isn't Any good small pan servos with 300+ degree rotation. The closest is the gws 360 sail winch servo, but that's large, heavy and slow. With enough torque for multiple gopros at once.
Can someone at Flite test PLEASE ask Peter to SLOW DOWN his speech. At times he sounds as if he has a mouth full of marbles. Very smart young man, but at times I have to guess at what he is saying. No offense to anyone, but dang.
+ItsMarino99 Channel You can slow down the video if that helps. In the web browser click the gear and choose a speed. It works for me in chrome at least. Now Peter talks fast, but for me at least it is perfectly fine that way (I often speed videos up because people speak so slow...).
I know this video is old, but I did this mod to my 360 servo, it spins for maybe 3-4 seconds, then slows down to a crawl. There is no grinding in the gears, and the potentiometer is properly centered. I use one of those cheap 30A brushed ESC's paired with a DUMBORC X4 radio/receiver combo, and a 7.2V battery.
A peek in to the mind of a r/c McGyver. I can see how a bunch of these could make for a lot of fun rigging up frights for Halloween. Something as simple as a bunch of ghosts hanging from trees that were all controlled by radios would be a lot of fun for scaring trick or treat participants as they walked by the house.
nice tutorial again! As engineer you should distinguish between '360 deg' vs 'contin. rotat.' It is not the same. A 280 deg. tutorial based on common servo would be great!
The retract servo of my plane stopped working properly. It only turns in one direction. My new Spektrum NX8 had the servo speed reduced for a realistic retract sequence, which may gave damaged the servo!? Can you provide any suggestions as to how to repair the servo. The circuit board shows no visible damage. Thank you!!
Those seem better for use as MIDI controlers rather than CAD CAMM CNCS you have any ideas on how to hack into the potentiometer part and make it so you can get that value. To the microcontroller?
though if you go for dumb 360 servo you can just remove stopper and use direct current after inside electronic parts are pulled out wires connected only to motor itself directly, just remove potentiometer too.
I am sure that I speak for thousands of people out there when i say that I look forward to my email notifications for the two videos of the week.
And, I am sure that I speak for thousands of us when I say that I/we love Flite Test. You epitomize all the good things about a hobby. "Making memories", if I may add "by making stuff" (and then playing with it! )
There is nothing that I need right now from Flite Test, but I will buy another t-shirt the next time I am at the hobby shop. The knowledge and enjoyment that I get from these folks is priceless.
I feel that we should all do our own little part to help these guys. They spend all of their time trying to help us.
Thank you to the Joshes, Alex, Peter, David, Eric, and all the rest, including wives (especially) and family.
Sincerely, Sean O'Keefe
I've repaired the gears on a dozen servos. When my brain loses its short term memory function I will open up another servo to use as a model so the gears go in correctly.
I have an ancient copy of Radio Control Model magazine with an article on how to do this. Peter's explanation is just as useful. Practice on an old standard servo; they're bigger,hence easier to work on.
Nice job on an arcane subject.
Instead of centering the potentiometer, remove it and use 2 same valued resistors instead.
Isn't that more work? What is the function of the pot? Does it work like this, when there's power to the motor, we read the resistance. Based on the resistance we control the logic/movement/position
I love when you guys actually get down to the technical detailed stuff! More videos like this please!
Thanks at FT! Just rewatching this episode and I'm very glad it is explained with all the details!
So much easier than soldering on some resistors, thanks for the video!
This was a lot different from the normal videos.... fantastic... LOVE it .. good hobby tips.... Thank You
How would you modify the servo to spin 2-3 turns only in each direction?. Like a sail winch servo may be. Using the servo limit or travel adjustment. ?. Any help is appreciated
thanks all before hand
I'm finding that the potentiometer drifts with the 9 gram servo. I sent a 90 degree (centered) command when I glued the pot. When I start the motor 'cold' at 90, it might 'click' every few seconds, or even turn slowly. Then, after running for a minute, the 'stop' is now at 92. After 5 minutes, it starts running sporadically and "stop" is now at 91, or 90, or even 89.
If you need a reliable 'stop', it's probably best to add a transistor, so that the 5V supply voltage is only applied, when a value other than 'center' (90 degrees) is sent. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to test a dedicated continuous motion servo, to see if they perform better (I'm guessing they added a bit of extra 'dead' zone' to avoid this issue). No free lunch, I guess...
hi grate video I've done this before for model boats and robotics, I then went to the next step try swoping the potential resister with a multy tern trimming pot you get 15 to 20 terns ,then fit a cog or threaded rod and you get endless uses. or have the pot on a short cable and you can get feedback at the pivotal point .hopefully this will be of interest to someone .
Cant be used for 360 pan tilt since it doesnt stop once you go to either one direction
"I can hold it and cut it off because I'm doing it fast ", awesome health and safety
Better tutorial than what David showed us two years ago! Thanks for sharing but... come on, RC Explorer !!!
Nice mod :) Also loving the Periscope live videos guys, keep em coming. :)
I'd like to add a word of warning for people that are planning to do this to their servos.
At least for the 9g servos, the dead space will drift over time. What I mean by this, is that after modifying and reassembling the servo, it will sit there, powered, not moving, however after a few second it may start to move on it's own. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster. It drifts over time.
This is probably not an issue when using it for a wheel motor (like in the little car), however when using in situations that require no motion (such as a sailboat winch) it's not the best idea.
The way to get around this is a bit more complex. You have to modify the potentiometer such that it can move slightly due to the friction on the shaft, but make it stop about half way of the maximum travel in each direction. This will introduce negative feedback for the center of the servo's range, but allow the full, continuous rotation at the extremes.
I am making a camera slider with a continuous servo and a servo tester.
Q. is there any way I can make it stop or change direction when it reaches the other end?
of course I can Wire it so that there is contact on the end of the route, or place a button which it will touch and press, but what signal should it output?
awesome tip! I have been doing this for years for making rc robots.
when are you guys going to get more GRAUPNER GR-18 - 9 CHANNEL 2.4GHZ RECEIVER in your store?
i tried doing this on a tower pro 9g servo, thing is that once i glue the potentiometer and put the case back on the servo will start to spin slowly in one direction, i then have to trim it a bit to stay put but then after a minute it starts spinnig again.
any idea on how to solve this issue?
With this mod you could make a camera focus/look at one point and circle around that point with a fixed wing. This would be great for DIY search and rescue!!! (CAN YOU MAKE A VID OF THAT BUILD)???? PLS :)
You can make it with servos with 60kg of torque?
is it ok to just remove the potentiometer?
i just realized that the FT shinden was supposed to be released about a year ago.
i really wanna build that plane...
+rallekralle11 Latest rumor is that the nnMIG3 and the FT Shinden will be released together this month. Around the 19th is what I'd guess...
Balu oh, nice.
Still no shindenen
No Monday video?
Just wondering, other than reduced complexity....what is the benefit of using a modified servo for continuous rotation vs say a brushless rc motor + esc? More torque from the servo because of the gearing? Or very little difference between the two?
+kryptonut Correct. You basically get a cheap geared motor.
Having followed this guide, I"m having trouble getting the servos to stop. Alone they stop okay, but I'm using a mixer, as I have in the past, to make robot control easier. -After short time manuvering both servos will continue to drive at a slow rate. Did I do something wrong or is this not an issue you've had?
Knowledge is power :D You guys are awesome :) Thanks for shearing:)
Best regards from Poland :)
Thank you Peter!
... nice solution guys :-) ... works for a lot circumstances ... but it's not working like a normal servo any more and returns into neutral position after the control does it ;-)
so, using this method to create a motor, can one have it to go in one direction, stop it for a set amount of time, and then run it in the other direction? Can it be placed on a 3 position toggle switch of the transmitter?
+Lee “iCrash” K Yes. :)
Is there a way to do this and get nice speed control? the way you have done it would only give speed control when the input is not outside the P band for the PID control (or the equivalent). It would also vary with load.
Perhaps there is something you could replace the pot with? that gives a resistance proportional to the shaft speed?
Gonna build this for a follow focus system
Thing is though these are not proper continuous rotation servos. They are just geared down motors with no feedback control. A real continuous rotation servo should have a rotatory encoder for velocity control.
English?
So basically it's turned a servo into a left or right turning geared motor without the servo capabilities of "knowing position". So it's not really a 360 servo, just a motor.
A motor with built-in speed control?
cool mod like the camera mount one the best and sounds like a great video mount to,like that was said in video..
Great project. Thanks for sharing.
could you use those as litle step motors? mabe to make a litle cnc drawing machine
+Franky Doodle I don't think so. While you can change the speed and the direction they are moving, they don't have any feedback control after you disabled the potentiometer. So they don't "know" at what position they are at.
or you can just replace the pot with two 10k resistors.
I tried it and it worked so thanks a lot and make more videos like this
Can i ask what's the name of that servo tester?
And also can i ask what's the best balance charger?
just use 2 resistors in stead of gleuing the potentiometer
"Each servo design is different, so not all servo designs are the same."
"Each servo design is different" is the sufficient condition of "not all servo designs are the same".
different=not the same!=not A the same
So here's a more tautological version:
Each servo design is different, so all servo designs are different.
Junko Ochiai
We were doing this 40+ years ago do you think rcflightest copied us?
I thought continuous is not the same as 360 degrees. seems what you did is continuous one not 360
Question for Pete, when applying super glue, where exactly do I apply it at???
+aussiemikeysaru The idea is to stop the potentiometer from turning. So the superglue needs to do that :)
+Balu Ok...First of all...thanks for the reply. So I did 2 servos. First one basically don't turn either way as smooth as the video shows. It seems to be turning with friction and I can feel the motor heating up. I did another one with a different approach and now it turns 1 way fine, but when I reverse the direction, it does the same thing, it does not spin smooth and will slowly built up heat, but not as fast as the first one. Anyone can point out what I did wrong here???
+aussiemikeysaru Did you center the poti before glueing it in place? Is there anything else that might block the movement?
Peter is the best
Do as I say, not as I do; right Peter?
great videos keep up the good work
Nice, it will be useful ! Thanks ;)
Could you guys consider a quad parachute? I'm sure it would be no trouble for you, me on the other hand......not so much. I can see the market for it, it would be great to not bash your new 1k quad into a thousand pieces, or worse, bash someones head or the neighbors dog into a thousand pieces. And if you fly a dji like I do, they're prone to falling out of the sky. Something simple, either one that detects a sudden drop in altitude, or one with a controller you can hit if you see trouble coming. Just a thought.
can u plssss do a lecture about how a servo works in a quadrone ?
+Dillon Lim There's no servo in a quadcopter.
Sry I dumb , but I saw on a pic that quadrones have tilt servo and roll servo . I don't understand why
+Dillon Lim No, they do tilt and roll, but not by using a servo. Quadcopters only have four motors. For maneuvers they speed up or slow down the motors.
To tilt forwards, they slow down the front motors and speed up the back motors.
To roll one side is slowed down and the other side is sped up.
O ,ok thx a lot
+Balu hey balu ,u seem to know a lot about these type of electronics, do u know stuff about quadrones? I might want to ask some questions
Very cool... I use this to build a robot with an arduino nano
it actually seems quite easy
David Winderstil would be spinning 360' in his grave right now :)
My Left Eye Enjoyed this
yall should make a plane and fly in it
can you please make a short rewiew on flybeam from hobby king becaus its my birthday soon and i dont know if it worth it
This isn't a 360 mod, it is continuous rotation.
I wouldn't call this a 360° Servo. You can't tell it to go to a certain position.
I would call this a "geared dc motor" and I think you can buy them out of the box.
Are servos much cheaper? If not, I don't see an other reason in this than playing around (which is still a reason).
+juschu85 The biggest advantage to this is the servo already has the motor controller built in.
+juschu85 Cheap servos are under £1 and most rc people have spares so no need to spend on more crap to experiment rather than research, buy, wait and then mod. Is there simple plug and play way to do this with a servo and designate 180 or 360 stops but still have free flowing for infinite turns? That would be helpful
Ok, then it definitely makes sense. But it's still not a servo. It's a cheap geared dc motor with an included controller.
juschu85 semantics but whatever makes you feel better dude
you could put one on the front wheel of a plane
Oh, I've done with my servos before.
Interesting, no longer a servo, but a directional motor
You are so awesome!
Plz make a mini plane out of plantraco parts
Good tip I wanted to do this
you need to put foam and tape in a room alone but with a camera and $2,000 budget for a week and minds will be blown for many a fortnight!
+Adam Bausch Pssst, that's actually what they do. But Peter keeps ordering explosives and blows the locked door open...
I'm confused, why not just buy a regular motor? :S Why ruin a servo? Is there any benefit to this? :S
UKHeliBob
Oh, ok, I thought you lost the ability to control the speed when you removed the potentiometer.
UKHeliBob
Okay, cool :) Do you know what measures the servo speed in these?
+Beacon of Wierd The benefit is the torque now available. Because of the gearing, the little high-speed motor drives a much lower speed output shaft at a much higher torque.
+Beacon of Wierd Generally degrees / second.
+Beacon of Wierd and it has much more torque than an regular motor, so it's really strong.
This video is too dark you should make it brighter so that we can see it better
+Malek Darwish Calibrate your monitor.................Google
Cool
over my head. Most of us humans would probably end up ruining a perfectly good servo lol
+Edward Tu I agree. Why not just buy a 360 degree servo? They are about $8.
+ron045 This, so badly this.
However, if it was 300-350 degrees, with actual servo centering it would be worth it.
As there isn't Any good small pan servos with 300+ degree rotation.
The closest is the gws 360 sail winch servo, but that's large, heavy and slow.
With enough torque for multiple gopros at once.
+ron045 Sometimes you have an old one around that jitters or something. Perfect for reuse as a "motor". :)
If you want it to move 360 degree, don't use a servo, just use the motor.
that's not a 360 servo it's just a reversable dc motor speed controller
What the actual f*, I just made something like this a couple days ago xD And FPV ofcourse
24 comment ya this vid rocks
just buy a motor....
peterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
better to buy a cheaper normal geared motor instead of wasting expensive servo motors
pls
they copied rcflighttest
+Junko Ochiai I think he wants to be copied
+Junko Ochiai This has been done since the very first RC servos were invented? It's a modification that's probably around 40 or more years.
Can someone at Flite test PLEASE ask Peter to SLOW DOWN his speech. At times he sounds as if he has a mouth full of marbles. Very smart young man, but at times I have to guess at what he is saying. No offense to anyone, but dang.
why don't you fucking buy a geared dc motor ?
+weed2luke Because most of us already have old, used or broken servos laying around. Also most geared motors that size are more expensive?
A helicopter just buzzed my house at like 300 feet wile I was watching this
Oh so you turned a servo into an overpriced gearmotor? neat.
+The Virus 4 bucks for motor, controller and case isn't bad.
+The Virus Whatever...
Btw, could you guys speak a little bit slower please??
Mmmm... Nice idea but no, they probably can't. :) I'd need to watch the vid 3 or 5 times while doing the mod.
+Jim Barchuk you're probably right hahaha
Probably something to do with the old magic 8 minute Utube thing!
+ItsMarino99 Channel You can slow down the video if that helps. In the web browser click the gear and choose a speed. It works for me in chrome at least. Now Peter talks fast, but for me at least it is perfectly fine that way (I often speed videos up because people speak so slow...).
Remove the Potentiometer and put 2 1k resistors
I know this video is old, but I did this mod to my 360 servo, it spins for maybe 3-4 seconds, then slows down to a crawl.
There is no grinding in the gears, and the potentiometer is properly centered.
I use one of those cheap 30A brushed ESC's paired with a DUMBORC X4 radio/receiver combo, and a 7.2V battery.
A peek in to the mind of a r/c McGyver.
I can see how a bunch of these could make for a lot of fun rigging up frights for Halloween. Something as simple as a bunch of ghosts hanging from trees that were all controlled by radios would be a lot of fun for scaring trick or treat participants as they walked by the house.
If only you could still get position feedback from these, too. Could use it for robot radar (or lidar, sonar, etc).
nice tutorial again! As engineer you should distinguish between '360 deg' vs 'contin. rotat.' It is not the same. A 280 deg. tutorial based on common servo would be great!
The retract servo of my plane stopped working properly. It only turns in one direction. My new Spektrum NX8 had the servo speed reduced for a realistic retract sequence, which may gave damaged the servo!?
Can you provide any suggestions as to how to repair the servo. The circuit board shows no visible damage. Thank you!!
Good job but how do you make the servo only do 1 single, full 360 rotation? I need one for a steering wheel mod I'm doing.
Those seem better for use as MIDI controlers rather than CAD CAMM CNCS you have any ideas on how to hack into the potentiometer part and make it so you can get that value. To the microcontroller?
Hay Peter; I saw your waterproofing video and I am wondering if you think those techniques would work on an Apple watch...
though if you go for dumb 360 servo you can just remove stopper and use direct current after inside electronic parts are pulled out wires connected only to motor itself directly, just remove potentiometer too.
Background music is damn annoying and unnecessary
So I'm gonna get down to doing this but I don't have the appropriate drill bit. Can I somehow bypass that step? Maybe using hot needles or something?
Dont put to much glue. My emax shorted out
I used to solder a resistor in place of a potentiometer that corresponds with the center position value, I guess super glue is less of a hassle.
Can u guys at ft plzzzzz help me wire a rover I am trying to make one And I don't know how to make it
This guy works are always a mess.