SparkFun Forums

[d4n1s]

Well I can't understand what the difference is between stepper motors and servos or even simple gear motors. I want to build a project on an arduino pin board and what I want is to connect 3 motors or servos or whatever u wanna call them which(they will ofc run with low volt) but have big Torque. I also want them to be small or not so big...

[leon_heller]

Google stepper and servo motors?

[tecoist]

For fans of simple, though:

* motor: just goes. It motors. There you are, you give it electrons and it makes torque and/or spin.
* servo: in this context, a motor with a controller that measures what the motor is doing, to control either position or speed. Often this means in particular the servo motors used in RC models. Servo can refer to practically anything that uses closed-loop (negative) feedback, though.
* stepper: a motor that moves in discrete steps, with no feedback mechanism (it's all done with electromagnetism, oooooo).

For fans of monumentally useless trivia: the term servo-motor was coined in 1873 (the servo-motor in question was steam-powered and rather larger than anything SparkFun sells).

[d4n1s]

my main question was which one is better for my use?
I want it to have big torque but control how many degrees it will turn(not exactly degrees.. but somehow to be able to know how
much it is turning and not guessing). For example, I know that motors are really small but can't give feedback of the degrees or
anything else, I could easily guess how many degrees has a motor turned by using timers to stop and start them. Example:
each second that the current runs through the motor the motor rotates for 10 degrees. However that would create many problems
like if the motor was prevented to turn then the robot would "know" that it turned these degrees. Anyways enough with talking!
What motor can I use that is small, has big torque and can be controlled using degrees (analogue input too)

[stevech]

Read, read, read.