Motors

There are generally three types of motors you will encounter on your mechatronics journey;

• Servo motor
• Stepper motor
• DC (direct current) motor

Servo motors

Servo motors are usually one of two types: 180 degrees or 360 degrees, describing how much they can turn.

Servo motors are good at precise controlling and can be controlled to go to a specific angle. The speed of rotation can be controlled somewhat, but not smoothly. Servos are generally easy to use and do not require additional hardware than your microcontroller. But depending on the amount of motors you might need additional power than the 5V you get from a power supply. So, when should you use a servo motor? In any project that would require precise rotation, that is not continuously in the same direction (as a car would be). The picture below is from a previous project, where we made an autonomous robot spider with six legs (also called a hexapod). The legs were moved and controlled with servo motors.

If you want to read more about servo motors, click here

Stepper motors

Stepper motors have unlimited rotation in either direction. They can, like the servo motors, also be controlled to sit at a specific angle position. On top of this the stepper motors have the added benefit of being able to accelerate and decelerate precisely, but at the cost of needing additional hardware. On top of this additional power is required, which combined with the above benefits make them harder to control and program. It is recommended for beginners to use libraries for stepper motors.

So, when should you use a stepper motor? Anytime that you need continuously rotation while keeping track of how many rotations your motor have made (for example for keeping track of distance driven). These motors are commonly used in automation and robotics, 3D printers and CNC machines. If you want to read more about stepper motors click here

DC motors

There are two main types of DC motors;

• Brushless
• Brushed The main difference between them is that the brushed motors are made of carbon while the brushless use magnets to generate power. Brushless motors are therefore more efficient since they generate no friction, produce less heating last for a lot longer than their brushed counterpart. This does however also come with an increased price.

  

  DC motors have unlimited rotation in either direction, like stepper motors. The angle is however incredible difficult to control, as they are best suited for just continuously movement. The speed of rotation is however easy to control but can be difficult to control down to a specific speed value. Extra hardware is required to control DC motors and extra power supply is also required to power to motor. So, when should you use a DC motor? Use a DC motor anytime that your project needs continuous rotation, but the speed value doesn’t need to be specified. DC motors are generally used in fans, pumps, RC cars and drills. If you want to read more about DC motors click here.