How to use an Adafruit 16-Channel PWM HAT with a Raspberry Pi to Control Sixteen Servos

I'm confused on how the code you wrote gets from the Pi board into the Adafruit 16 Channel Servo Breakout Board? Does the sketch changes get loaded onto the processing board automatically as you change them, or is that a save command in the program. I have no experience in coding and I have to modify some servo movements for my R2D2 Droid for the halo projector lights. A great video, I learned a lot. Good verbal speed and very clear voice. Thank you.

all i have is 6 or 7 volt servos and there is no help anywhere on planet earth

Hi Tim at Core Electronics,

I am Alex. I currently doing the work at my workplace. I am trying to find ways to use the Raspberry Pi System to make 6 or 8 servomotor running . I have a question as the information listed below:

1. I know you told me that you used the Adafruit 16 channel PWM Servohat to make more than 2 servomotor running. How many gpio pins do I need to make more than 2 servomotor running with the PWM servohat ?

2. Is it necessary for me to connect all the pins from the PWM servohat to the Raspberry Pi Model 3 Computer Board?

А сколько максимум серво моторов можно подключить?

Would it be possible to use this to tune motor RPM to chromatic note frequencies?

Hi would this work motor control board shim or hat small one

This is terrific! I have my eye on doing animatronics. What would be a good library for sequencing/tweening servo settings?

Can I also control 16 12V DC motors ??

Hi, I didn't see you controlling all at the same time. I mean, simultaneously. Did you try that yourself? Thanks!

Is there any way to use PCA9685 with AVR? Cause I've tried hard to write a driver to it, but I faild.

Hello 😊

I'm stuck, I have my Raspberry Pi Zero, my PCA9685 and my servo, but the servo doesn't move. I think maybe you need extra power, maybe it's not enough with just Pi Zero, I don't know if you can confirm this for me. Because I imported the libraries and used your code and I didn't have any errors.

Another idea is... The pca9685 was sold to me broken (but it has a red light whren it is comnected).

Looks great. I have the material to build something similar synchronizing the sound with the movements. Where could I find a document with all the steps starting from 0? I need to read it slowly as a total beginner Thanks!

Hello! Thank you for the tutorial! One of the most well explained ones I found!
I managed to get 16 servos running, but I would like to go even further (Big project)
If I were to connect a second board in (SLA, SDA) continuation, then the 2 boards would have different addresses. How would this change the code? Is there a way to select the address when initializing the ServoKit function?
Thank you for your time and the tutorial again!

Can it runs 16 Motors at the same time?

Would this work with regular DC motors

I have a ghostbusters trap that someone made. Has a chip in it and servos for the doors. They don't work right. So I can't just swap them out? I'd have to reprogram the new ones?

May you tell about how to program if we want to run 5 servomotor simultaneously.

is it possible for a raspberry pi to control a larger motor, like a windshield wiper motor or larger dc motor that can aid in helping a disabled person walk as long we we power it seperatley?

Hi would do this with controlling it with flysky receiver and audunio or raspberry pi any help please

Could you tell me how we can chain two pca9685 using this python library

Good job. I have a question. I want to rotate the servo and once it done I want to clean the pin. I see that is done in GPIO by calling stop method however I am not sure how to stop using adafruit hat. My experience shows that the servos tend to gitter while trying to stop at a constant position. thanks for help.

Great tutorial and great code. Thanks for the help. Got this board up and running and testing with a servo in minutes.

Great tutorial, thank you. Is there a hat with built in potentiometer(s) that could be used to control the servos? Otherwise potentiometer control would require a chip such as mcp3008 and the libraries to work with it.

Hi. This is a very detailed video thank you for that. I'm done with the soldering part and have put the hat on my pi. But do you know if it can run one servo without additional power to the hat? and only use power from the pi? I want a portable setup to control the servo on my RC car :)

What about moving multiple servos at the same time, instead of in sequence?

Amazing
I want to write a app python for this.

Hi Tim, I am wondering that instead of using Adafruit 16-Channel PWM / Servo HAT for Raspberry Pi - Mini Kit, can I use another servo driver which is the PCA9685 and go with the same of your code and method/process that you have made to control multiple servos?

looking forward to your advice ^^
Thank you

"Very Satisfying." That hat close-up footage is very good.

Can I control 6 7,4V servo motors with this controller?

Thank you for awesome, video.
I couldnt get in my country any Raspberry Pi model except that with keyboard Raspberry Pi 400

My qesution is, how do I align, correctly pins using GPIO Ribbon Cable for Raspberry Pi Model A+/B+/Pi 2/Pi 3/Pi 4 - (40 pins)?

Because side what goes in Raspberry Pi 400 is marked and goes in only one way, buy other side I can plug in bouth ways in Adafruit 16-Channel PWM / Servo HAT for Raspberry Pi - Mini Kit

Need help.

So does this shield just reduce the amount of wires needed to control several servos using I2C, or does it do more.
I was mostly wondering if this still uses software to control the servos or if it's hardware. Just overthinking things and looking into getting rid of servo jitter on a project.

Hey, your projects are really amazing. We want to feature them on our channel. There is no money involved. If it sounds good, then please reply. Just have a look at our channel to get a clear idea.

Thanks for the video, helped me a lot! Just one question: It looks like the hat uses all the GPIO pins of the Raspberry Pi. Does this mean I can‘t do anything else with the Pi like for example connect an IMU?

can i control a servo with a 2811 ic? For each color chanel one servo

The final code can be shortened by using loop.

In setup section above the while loop we can have one for or while loop for variable say i to go from 0-15. Then we can just put one line and instead of number put i.

Same in while loop we can have 2 loops one for the n where we can use this n as t/n and in that loop we can have a nested loop for value say j to go from 0-15. And now just replace whole with only 3 lines and place j instead of number.

And there you have it. A reduced code with same functionality.


Though hat's off to the creators and for well explained tutorial 🔥

S0 for example, told to go to 0 position. Mill the motor try to hold it at 0 position if force is presented to rotate it?
OR does the controller release power to that servo after it gets to its position.
OR can you tell it to release power to hold position for any one of those servos?