Micro Maestro 6-Channel USB Servo Controller (Partial Kit) [145]

The six-channel Micro Maestro raises the performance bar for serial servo controllers with features such as a native USB interface and internal scripting control. Whether you want high-performance servo control (0.25?s resolution with built-in speed and acceleration control) or a general I/O controller (e.g. to interface with a sensor or ESC via your USB port) this tiny versatile device will deliver. The fully assembled version ships with header pins installed.

The Micro Maestro is a highly versatile servo controller and general-purpose I/O board in a highly compact (0.85"×1.20") package. It supports three control methods: USB for direct connection to a computer TTL serial for use with embedded systems and internal scripting for self-contained host controller-free applications. The channels can be configured as servo outputs for use with radio control (RC) servos or electronic speed controls (ESCs) as digital outputs or as analog inputs. The extremely precise high-resolution servo pulses have a jitter of less than 200 ns making these servo controllers well suited for high-performance applications such as robotics and animatronics and built-in speed and acceleration control for each channel make it easy to achieve smooth seamless movements without requiring the control source to constantly compute and stream intermediate position updates to the Micro Maestro. Units can be daisy-chained with additional Pololu servo and motor controllers on a single serial line.

A free configuration and control program is available for Windows and Linux making it simple to configure and test the device over USB create sequences of servo movements for animatronics or walking robots and write step through and run scripts stored in the servo controller. The Micro Maestro˙s 1 KB of internal script memory allows storage of servo positions that can be automatically played back without any computer or external microcontroller connected.

Because the Micro Maestro˙s channels can also be used as general-purpose digital outputs and analog inputs they provide an easy way to read sensors and control peripherals directly from a PC over USB and these channels can be used with the scripting system to enable creation of self-contained animatronic displays that respond to external stimuli and trigger additional events beyond just moving servos.