I am a senior Computer Science major and am working on my senior project. Explaining exactly what I want do would take too much time but one of the first steps is that I need to be able to hook up a servo motor (for example Futaba S3003) to my parallel port and be able to give commands to it like; center, full left, full right and incremental turns. (I have a good idea as to how to write the driver but am very confused about the hardware needed) I have no EE experince and dont know how to build electronic boards, but I am willing to learn. Can you help me identify the steps I need to complete to be able to work such a servo setup. Please go easy on the professional lingo.... I am a newbie.

ILYA

 

Get a copy of HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN LOW-COST DATA
DISPLAY AND AQUISTION DEVICES, by J.H. Hirsch (Tabb Books).

Buy a ADC0808, download ADAC0808 data sheets from the Web, buy a solderless breadboard and some compatible wire. I suggest going online to JDR Electronics or Jameco Electronics, and paying to have them shipped to you.

 

Controlling a servomotor is probably way beyond the skills of a newbie. Try controlling
a stepper motor instead.
Get a copy of HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN
LOW-COST DATA ACQUISTION AND DISPLAY DEVICES,
by Jeffrey H. Hirst (It's available from Tab Books, for about $ 25.)

 

Seek out and team up with an EE major or better, an experienced hobbyist. And check out the machine tool hobby sites, they always have schematics and howtos for that sort of thing. And there are many good links on the NIST EMC project site. The EMC project itself describes multiple servos controlled from the parallel port. And all of these are low buck ways to do it.

Regards

cww

 

HAve a look at Mel Bartels work - - - http://www.bbastrodesigns.com/cot/cot.html
This should be all you need.

Don
[email protected]

 

Hi Ilya

You might also do a google for the EMC project at NIST.
Drivers, etc. ready to rock.

Regards

cww