servos

[puppetise]

hey im building a animatronic puppet and i have sevos and all the bits and peices but the servos are too loud how can i quiet them down

 

[Teenager's]

I don't think they ever Really quite down all the way....because if you watch behind the scenes of animatronic movies you can still hear the clicking....

but I would guess that you would be able to muffle the noise once you start putting material on.....

 

[Buck-Beaver]

There are "quiet" servos that you can buy, but they are usually expensive. I have heard of servos that are housed in two plastic cases (one inside the other) that are pretty cheap and can sometimes be found in surplus shops (they are used to make things like vending machines).

The servos that usually run near-silent are used in professional high-end applications like camera equipment in the film industry and quite expensive.

Anybody else knows of quiet, cheap servos for hobbyists?

 

[practicecactus]

Two things that come to mind is maybe injecting some oil into the little motors. In and around, just to lube it all up. Might reduce some noise.
The clear type oil.I'm thinking the kind for knife blades, but I imagine hobby shops have something, some kind of oil for moving parts in remote control cars and planes.
Oil doesn't affect electronics, so that's not a problem. But Hobby shops might have something for just this kind of application.

The other would be like was said already, Just wrap the servos in foam, without obstructing the moving parts.
I guess the denser the foam the more it will muffle the sound.

 

[shtick]

You can line the area where the machinery is housed with some "Computer Noise Supression" material. You can find this in any PC building catalog.

 

[furryfriends]

I know you dont want to hear this but i made an animatronic bird with servos i got really good metal geared ones too but it makes load noise and if it is in a close space to long the servos start to get hot it started melting my foam so i had to take it apart and put it back together again now i am looking into pnematics also what controler are you using

 

[Buck-Beaver]

That's true, if you're putting servos in a foam head they need space to breathe a bit. Ventilation becomes an issue even if the foam doesn't melt because some servos will fail if they get too hot.

 

[TheCreatureWork]

Servos will always make a sound- Sometimes the audience won't even notice the noise if your performance sound is loud enough; or they will notice the sounds but just ignore it after a while. I recommend doing a show with friends and family first (don't tell them about the servos) see if they notice the noise. If they do then decide whether you can deal with the noise or not. I find I am harder on certain things like that and then find that the audience really doesn't care because they are too attentive to the performance/story. I just remember going to Chuckie Cheese when I was a kid and not noticing the animatronic sounds coming from the performance of Chucky and his friends as they played various tunes.