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I have been given this arm:

Imgur

It consists of 4 servos, which need to be controlled individually.

Can I control them using Gertboard? Gertboard has only one motor driver, but it also has several open collector ports and buffered outputs.

I know Raspberry Pi itself can control a servo through a PWM pin and that you can emulate PWM on any additional pins. How do I do it safely via Gertboard? Should I use buffered pins? Won't servos blow my Pi or Gertboard up?

katspaugh
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1 Answers1

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You can connect a servo control wire direct to a Pi gpio and use hardware timed PWM to control the servo position. You could have an in-line resistor if you prefer (say 1K-10K).

I don't know if you can generate reliable PWM on a Gertboard. Software timed PWM is unlikely to give satisfactory control of servos. That said, there is little harm in trying, at worse you will shorten the servo's life a little.

joan
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