From zak.zebrowski at gmail.com Tue Apr 16 09:54:23 2013 From: zak.zebrowski at gmail.com (Zachary Zebrowski) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:54:23 -0400 Subject: [Hardware-pm] pure hardware question... Message-ID: Hi All, I'm building an autonmous boat for fun, to float across the potomac and back (possibly). The boat is a FL style "air boat". It's a hodgepoge, but it mostly works. (See http://www.flickr.com/photos/japharl/8652539722/in/photostream ). I plan to use perl (Anyevent) to handle stuff, on a pi. At this point, I have most of the componets identified, but I need help with one particular aspect. The adruino code is simple. I get a bearing via a magnetic compass, and that works. I have a mini servo that turns port, starbord, straight ahead, and that works. I then turn on a relay (via pin 13) to turn on the fan, which will propel the boat across the water. That works, *but*, the servo does not maintain the position set in the second step. At this point, the pin 13 circut goes straight to the relay and then to ground... Would a resister help? Alternatively, I could just raise the pin via the pi, but I'm not sure if the relay would work with 3v... Any suggestions how to proceed / debug this project? Thanks, Zak