difference between motors..

hey guys alex, here, so im putting together my basic square bot, and im noticed the starter pack came with 3 motor modules and 1 servo motor and i was wondering what the difference between them is, i know this is probably beginnger question, and also i was wondeirng when installing the tank treads, do i need to run my robot on 4 motors? thanks alex

a servo motor turns a certain amount of degrees. in the vex kit they will turn 120 degrees. the regular motors run continuously. and when you are using tank treads, you don’t have to use 4 motors.

so servo motors would be basically used for like if wanted to make a arm that turned or moved up and down kinda? and motor are generaly used to run the wheels?

Well, using gears, you could run the treads on two motors, 1 per side.

Although both motors, servo and regular motors perform different tasks.

Motors can spin continuously. They have 360 degrees of rotation and can spin as long as you wish. They are usually used for wheels, treads, sprockets, or anything that needs to keep rolling.

A servo motor on the other hand, can only turn 50 degrees each direction. In other words, it can turn left a little bit but will stop at a maximum limit, and right a little bit to stop at maximum limit. Servos are generally used for stuff like claws, where they don’t need to keep spinning and need to stop at a specific place.

For motors, you can just just the direction of spin, 255 being spinning clockwise at max speed, 0 spinning at counter-clockwise max speed, and 127 being stopped.

A servo, however, is meant to stop at certain points. 255 is 50 degrees right, 0 is 50 degrees left, and 127 is in the middle.

I hope this helps and have fun vexing :smiley:

Edit:

Btw octane, correct me if i’m wrong, but the servos have 100 degrees of rotation.

well, i’m not exactly sure, it probably is 100 degrees. the website says 100 and the paper that came in my servo package said 120 degrees.

It’s 100 degrees. I’ve found a use for a server only once. There is a way to convert vex servos to regular motors though.

Servos are useless for parts such as wheels, but they are better for some stuff. a good example of uses for servos is what I did on my robot for Science Olympiad. I wanted the claw to stay halfway open for easy use, and I didn’t have another motor at the time, so I positioned the claw in the desired position and then installed the shaft to the servo. the claw opens and closes completely, and is more precise than when I used the motor. Also, this let me carry the larger objects without having to mess around with the claw controls as the servo constantly returns to it’s original position.

If what I just said made no sense at all, the photos might help
https://vexforum.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=1004&c=8&orderby=username&direction=ASC&cutoffdate=-1