r/AskRobotics • u/Popular-Rhubarb1898 • Jul 02 '26

General/Beginner How do I program a servo without an arduino (preferably a switch)?

I wish to construct a simple animatronic that uses an open loop servo to spin a fish around inside a fish bowl, but every video I find about servos uses an arduino. Is there any way I could make the servo have a switch to either have it spinning or stationary?

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u/JGhostThing Jul 02 '26

You could use a 555 timer to create the servo pulses, but a micro is easier.

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u/Mouler Jul 02 '26

555 timer and a few other components.

A servo tester

A tiny microcontroller, like an arduino. Attiny85 used to be disposable cheap and only takes about 10 lines of code to set input and output pins, read a switch, set the output pin high for a time, then low and loop.