10

I'm looking for non-destructive way to structurally attach a standard servo with LEGO bricks. I'm interested in answers for either Large, Medium or Small size servos.

I'm using LEGO Mindstorm/Technic bricks to prototype all kind of robotic projects and I often use non-LEGO parts for the electronics (e.g. Arduino, Servos, LEDs, ...). I'm always trying to find better ways to integrate those non-LEGO parts without damaging the LEGO bricks.

I'm aware that there are some commercial adaptors available on the market but I'm interested in creative homemade solutions (low-cost to no-cost).

For example: here is one way to attach a medium size servo to a LEGO Technic beam:

Servo attached to LEGO Technic beam

Zhaph - Ben Duguid
  • 19,551
  • 6
  • 78
  • 151
pcantin
  • 13,483
  • 8
  • 46
  • 90
  • 1
    At first I thought you were speaking of the electr(on)ic part of things, but now I think you may rather be after the physical assembly to LEGO parts - right? – Joubarc Oct 07 '12 at 14:58
  • 2
    @Joubarc Yes I'm talking about the physically attaching servos and LEGO bricks together. I'll clarify and add a image to help. – pcantin Oct 07 '12 at 15:34

2 Answers2

4

The best solution is to create custom LEGO-compatible bricks that your servos (or other parts) fit into. This can be done by:

  • modding existing bricks with knives, glue and other tools
  • building bricks from other material (wooden LEGO, formed with Fimo/Sculpey...)
  • building bricks with a 3D-printer (for instance see the LEGO category on thingiverse). There are online services to print your designs if you don't have a 3D printer (yet ;-)

Each strategy is worth another question here at bricks.SE.

Jakob
  • 1,278
  • 2
  • 12
  • 21
  • 1
    To add to this answer, I would also suggest looking at The Free Universal Construction Set. While they don't provide anything for integrating legos and servos specifically, there's a lot of examples of how to integrate Legos with non Legos components (some of which might make integrating a servo easier.) – kaliatech Nov 06 '12 at 19:06
3

Depending on your rigidity requirements, I've found double-sided tape to work well.

It's cheap and found in many general goods store. The servo itself can be taped and supported on all four sides and/or the bottom to many types of lego brick surfaces.

You can also use double-side tape to mount a lego surface to a servo control horn. That provides nearly infinite mounting flexibility. However, the control horn attachment will not be very rigid or support a lot of weight without an additional structures to support whatever is actually moving.

When finished, you can just peel the tape off. (...which is sometimes easier said than done.)

kaliatech
  • 241
  • 2
  • 8