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PCA9685

A project log for Servo Breakout for WeMos D1 Mini

Connect servos to your ESP8266 dev board.

dehipudeʃhipu 02/23/2017 at 15:563 Comments

@Jonathan Beri asked in the comments why I didn't use PCA9685, but instead went with an ATmega and my own code. To be honest, this is mostly because this project is the continuation of my #Servo Controller project, in which I used a Pro Mini board.

But that got me thinking, and I went and checked if I can get some of those chips cheaply, and I went ahead and designed a PCB for them:

I was actually so happy with it, that I went ahead and ordered them from OSHPark. Today the boards arrived, and I assembled one and tested it:

It works perfectly fine. You only get 16 channels (that's why I could fit it on the standard D1 Mini shield), but you can stack 64 of those boards (the address selection jumpers are on the bottom). Pretty neat.

Discussions

zoobab wrote 02/21/2019 at 14:19 point

Other question is why not the MCP23017. Chips are breakout board are sold for 0.80USD on aliexpress.

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deʃhipu wrote 02/21/2019 at 14:30 point

Because it doesn't do PWM, so I would have to drive it in software. Incidentally, I also made a port expander shield with the MCP2317 if you prefer that: #D1 Mini Expander Shield 

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davedarko wrote 02/23/2017 at 16:26 point

nice work!

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