Mearm with Pi Zero

Support
1

Hi,

I am looking to get a Mearm robot arm and control it with a Raspberry Pi Zero. I am slightly confused about how to power the servos. According to this page:

https://www.mearm.com/pages/instructions

it requires a 6V 2A power supply. Can anyone recommend a suitable power supply?

Additionally, I have seen some videos on Youtube where people are using a Piconzero to control the Mearm, but I could not find any information about whether they were using an additional power supply, or whether the Piconzero was powering it. According to the description here:

http://4tronix.co.uk/store/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=552

the servo outputs are 5V, not the required 6V. Can anyone shed any light?

Any help appreciated!

Best regards,
Pete

2

you definitely do NOT want to power off servos off the Pi, in any event… bad things WILL happen. So, yes, you would need a separate power source for the servos themselves.

3

Yeah, I’m surprised in their docs they show it directly connected to a Pi!

4

The Pi is more than happy to drive one (or even 2 at a pinch) micro servos directly as long as the servo is not stalled and a high current type. Servos are designed to work with 4.8V to 6V, so the voltage is not an issue, simply the current taken by the servo. For the MeArm, you would definitely need to connect to additional power - running 4 servos from the Pi is not a good plan.

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