So i’m attempting to make a motion sensitive servo type device, but whenever I plug my MG995 servo it goes to hard fault. It should work because when I try to do this with a micro servo (SG90) it works just fine.
Do you know what this would happen? Do I not have enough power for the larger servo?
The specs for that servo say that the signal needs to be 4.8 to 7.2 volts, so the Particle device cannot power that directly from a 3.3 volt pin. You would need to add a transistor of some sort tied to the 5 volts (or more) to power this.
Though that’s true for the 3.3V pin, obviously, you should be able to use the Vin pin, which is supposed to be at 5V. That said, servo’s are power hungry, and can have some nasty spike. You might want to power that separately and ensure you’ve got some proper caps in place to prevent damage.
The specs that I saw were pretty thin, but it appears that, not only the power, but also the PWM signal needs to be a minimum of 4.8 volts. Also, the output of Vin is only 4.8 volts, so even that is on the edge for this servo.