Servos after all

I thought I'd found a good solution, but it looks like the cheap gearmotors I'd found have a clutch that limits torque to about 60 oz-in, which is almost half what I need. So instead I kept looking and discovered ServoDatabase.com, which appears to have every servo on the market! I narrowed down the list to servos with over 100 oz-in of torque. I've actually found what look like some great deals. After narrowing it down to five of them, I've decided to go with the TowerPro MG945.

It's got 166 oz-in of torque, metal gears, and costs $8.99!!! Unless it turns out to be a piece of crap, this is going to be awesome. Including tax and shipping, two of them cost $26. An arduino knockoff costs about $30, so the total so far is $56. I still need some kind of housing, seeing as it's gonna be in the shower. I also need something a coupler to put the temp sensor in, and something to hold the servos steady. Thank goodness this is a prototype! They always cost more than what people end up actually buying. I've just been trying to do it cheaply so I can build them for friends.

Well, now I can get started actually making the thing work. I should be able to read the temperature myself, but I'll need help making the servos compensate for temperature changes. I'm really excited. I don't even care that someone else may have done it (although a quick Google search didn't find anything), because I just want to actually build something fully. We'll see how I feel once the parts come and I actually start putting everything together, but I'm very hopeful. Yay!