Servo Idle Current

[TinkerJim]

I have been trying to find specs on the idle current of various servos, but not much is available. The few that have ratings given show between 6 and 8mA for standard servos, and a digital model had 3mA specified. Does anyone here know any more about this?

I am thinking of a battery run application in which the servo will have long periods of inactivity, so wish the drain to be as low as possible during these idle periods.

An alternative would be to have the Picaxe turn off the servo supply via a mosfet, but I have no experience with servos, so am unsure how quickly they "wake up". A half second wake up would be fine.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Technical]

Do you mean idle as in maintaining its position, or idle as in not receiving pulses (ie floppy and arm can be moved).

The latter will drastically cut down the idle current, and can be achieved with
servo pin, off

 

[srnet]

What size of servo do you had in mind, within arms reach of where I sit I have servos that range from about 1.5g to 55g, and they go bigger still

 

[TinkerJim]

I mean idle as in not receiving pulses.

I had in mind a standard size servo - around 40 or 45g.

 

[srnet]

By standard, I presume you meant the type that often come 'free' with transmitter sets.

If so, 7ma.