[TUTORIAL] LED lighting with an old servo

Started by aniket210696, August 04, 2013, 10:52:43 AM

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aniket210696

hi! so i ws fiddling around with some broken servo's, and i discovered a way to make them as switches for led arrays!
it basically involves giving a fixed resistance from the potentiometer (pot) and replacing the motor terminals with a LED/ LED's

1. Dismantle your servo. carefully take apart the gears, the motor and board, and the pot

2. de-solder the motor, and solder the led into it's place. be sure to not damage the wire which goes to the Rx

3. now the tricky part. set up a channel on your Tx , and flip the switch on and off. check how the led is lighting. rotate the pot, and keep checking. The LED will glow brighter as you take the pot to the edges, and will dim as the pot is centered. keep rotating it till you find the sweet spot, ie. the LED is on with one switch position, and off after flipping the switch on the Tx.

4. another option is to remove the pot, and put 2 resistor aver the 3 wires, which have the same resistance as the pot. i didn't use this as i didn't have any resistors left, and i was in a hurry

5. put some CA into the pot, to seal it's position. TRIPLE CHECK that it's in the correct position.

6. now you can cut off the shaft on the pot, and put the whole thing in some heatshrink tubing...if you want, you can put more LED's in series to the first one...

ENJOY your lighting sytem!

hope this helps,
regards
aniket

PS: if any one has a suggestion, or can explain it better, they are welcome to do so... also, my camera isn't working, so pictures are welcome.. :)
.

santhosh-r

Spektrum DX6i | Phoenix V4 | CoroTrainer | Tamiya Baja king 2WD | RCTimer F450 Quadcopter

aniket210696

thanks! ;D i used this sytem to light up the cockpit of my p51d mustang..  :D
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atulrajguru9

Cool man!

You should post a step by step build log with photos if possible :)

Thank you for posting this.

Regards,
Atul

aniket210696

@atul, thanks! I will try.. I did this mod while fiddling with some broken servos... so I didn't click pics... I'll update this thread with pics soon! till then, if anyone tries their hand at this mod, they are welcome to post their pics here!

Sent from a potato using a lamp
.

Aniket1995

Hi aniket nice plan.  {:)}
to which channel you conect the servo to light cockpit of your p51d mustang ???
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aniket210696

you can connect it to any channel... if you want it to be on and off, you connect it to the channel with a flip switch. if you want to control it then you add it to a channel with a potentiometer

Sent from a potato using a lamp
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prateek13

This awsome....
A cool idea to use the old broken servos
Award | OFNA Nexx8 | Art-Tech Edge 540T | Glidiator V2 | Hawker Tempest | Cessna Citation Jet
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madaquif

ASWOMEEE idea.

{:)} {:)} {:)}

it will be more understandable if there were some pics for newbie like me

:hatsoff:
Regards

MadAquif...

4 D RC ....SURFACE WATER AIR N SPACE

VC

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional!

madaquif

Regards

MadAquif...

4 D RC ....SURFACE WATER AIR N SPACE

VC

Anytime! Just go ahead and do it. An idiot like me got it right the first time. ;) It is as easy as boiling a glass of water.
Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional!

sundaram

After removing pot replacing it with two resisters half its value simulating pot in mid position you can control two LED array in parallel connected in series with 100 ohm resistance or four LED in parallel through a three position toggle switch assigned to the channel connected.