I realized I need to get the bucket curl done before I finish the lift, This is a plastic toy after all and I don't want to snap the pieces on and off any more than I have to just to be on the safe side. I want to get the bucket curl done and the wires routed so it's done when I get to the lift assembly.
I went with these servos for the bucket curl again because people smarter than I figured out they work well, and again I'm pretty new at this so I'll stick with what works.
It took me a little bit to wrap my head around how these servos have to mount. I didn't want to cut away anymore than I had to but I couldn't get the curl to work smooth the way I was doing it, it's hard to line the servos up with the bucket hinge location perfect enough to make it not bind. Then I figured out you don't need to .... it has to be close but you cut away the inside of the arms so the servos fit in nice and snug and use the servo horn as the lever that slides up into the arm. Then I ran a 2.5mm bolt down thru the arm so the horn is "trapped", it can slide up and down just a few mm but can't slide all the way out this accounts for any offset in the hinge point
Sorry for the blurry picture...
I went to my go to red oak and made up a mount for the curl servos and painted them black I'll have to get a picture of them mounted and the bolts thru the arms...the mounts were just kind of trail and error, and the oak is kind of heavy so I cut it down as much as I could and still maintain it's strength
I used a dremel to open up a channel down each arm then cut the connector off and fed them thru the arm ...just have to take your time, the cables on the servos were to short so I used an extension cable and soldered it together in the middle after I ran the cut ends from opposite directions... then I made a "Y" cable to tie them together.
now this is the part that most people forget, take your servo programmer (I got the Hitec DPC-11 and hooked it to one of my laptops since it works with Windows 10) and first widen the deadband as wide as it will go, then program the end point so the are as close to matched as you can get them take your time...the deadband being opened up will help here. Just set and test...set and test ...when you get them were they aren't fighting each other at the endpoints I cut the speed by 70% I know it seems like a lot but they work really smooth and it looks way more scale they don't jerk as much. Remember it's the speed not the power that is reduced... I thought I had more pictures but I don't so I'll try to get a few of how the wires are run and what the curl mount looks like....if anybody needs to see them....once I get these done I'll mount the arm and work on the lift servo.. the servo programmer is on sale right now (8 Oct 2020) for $16.99 at Servo City just FYI...