Whilst playing around with my servo controller I realised that the power used by a servo goes up considerably when it's under heavy load (such as when it's pressing against the table and still trying to move). I can, potentially, get an idea of this load by measuring the current that each servo is using and using this feedback somehow. I've yet to work out how, but at the very least it could be used to protect the servos against overloading; if the load gets above a certain threshold then stop moving! Ideally the servo controller could feed this information back to the user of the servo controller as well. Anyway, this requires quite a large amount of breadboarding changes, the use of some active low multiplexor chips and some playing around with the ADC on the ATMega. I don't think I'll experiment with this just yet...
December 2009 Archives
I decided to treat myself to an early christmas present and bought a 60W temperature controlled soldering station (a ZD-916 which I got from Maplin). All I can say is WOW. Suddenly I can solder neatly rather than making a smeary mess. The difference between this and my cheapo 12W soldering iron is just unbelievable. It just makes the whole process SO much easier. Where in the past when soldering something with a large heat sink or onto a large pad would be painful as both items would never seem to get up to temperature now I hear the iron click on as I touch the items to be soldered and the heat stays constant and it just works... Highly recommended.
