AxiDraw Replacement Pen Lift Servo

The pen-lift servo motor for my AxiDraw SE/A3 pen plotter burnt out, so I needed a new one — but since Evil Mad Scientist Labs were recently bought by Bantam Tools, the basic servo is no longer in production. They recommend upgrading to the coreless servo or the brushless servo, which I’m sure are nice upgrades, but I needed a cheap way to get back up and running fast.

I found these SG90 / 9G servo motors on Amazon (affiliate link), and crossed my fingers that they would work the same way. They seemed to be labeled as the exact same model as the original on my AxiDraw, labeled with a black and gold sticker, “Tower Pro™, Micro Servo 9g, SG90.”

I plugged one of these servos in, and thankfully, it worked right away! I used the control software to set it to 50% lift, installed the arm in the horizontal position, and installed the servo easily with the original screws. I had to adjust the calibration of the raise and lower positions slightly in the control software, but it works well and even seems slightly faster than the original servo. The control cable was a lot longer, but a zip tie solved that issue, to keep it out of the way of the X/Y arm.

I may upgrade to a better servo some day, but a pretty decent solution for $1.60 per unit. And now I have extras to make that talking skull project for Halloween.