Using the Raspberry Pi Pico, PCA9685 and MicroPython for Robotics

Has anyone said when more Pico's will be in stock at the resellers? Last I heard was late Feb, but that has come and gone.

I used 4 of those in my InMoov build.
It does work, I used a Raspberry Pi 3 at the time.
I'm remaking Fred and have 2 in so far :-)

The guy who built the computer on bread boards was Ben Eater.
His latest is adding a PS2 keyboard to his computer :-)

Did you know the PCA9685 was originally created to control LED lighting?
Turns out it also works well for driving servos :-)

My board when I scan shows [65, 112]
I'm having trouble figuring out what the 65 needs to be converted to in HEX = 0x41 maybe? Then where do you put that info to make it talk to the PCA9685?
Thanks

Right on Kevin! nice work

とても参考になります。
ありがとうございます。

How do I get it to stay in a position after a sequence?

Have you ganged any PCA9685 boards together for more devices?

Hello! I have a question - I build my own project with robo-hand and i used your code, because it perfectly work with servos on RPI Pico. But I have a trouble and watch again this video. I saw that angle of servo working with pca9685 on 180 not right 180, its some of 165-170. Why it happens? In my project I need true 180 angle and 0 angle. Thank you for answer.

Can we control normal 6v dc motor with it as well?

Thank a lot for the work.
Working now on a ESP32 and "Archive" folder in PicoCat repo files version
Enought to start. I'm new on micropython.
SDA & SCL are 21 & 22 in this microcontroller.
I will try on a RPI Pico too.

Anybody got a quick solution to the problem of Thonny returns error that "pca not recognized". Is there a micropip install package available?

WORKING AGAIN!!! PCA9685 not working...it may be a bad product and not code.

I had recently ordered two new PCA9685's from Amazon and put my 'old' PCA9685 way in a junk drawer. Why? because I had 'new' ones!! Then....disaster struck as both were bad out of the box. I've switched back to my 'old' one from the junk drawer and VIOLA Kevin's code works like magic!

Not sure if there's a library or hardware issue but one of my two PCA9685 worked on my Arduino UNO perfectly fine the other was NRFI (not ready for issue) out of the box


Maybe purchasing a high quality PCA9685 could do the trick?

Can anyone tell me why I couldn't install adafruit-circuitpython-servokit on my raspberry pi zero?
I have installed Python 3.9.2 and I2C is enabled. The issue tells 'could not fin a version that satisfies the requirement'.

I'm stuck, can someone help me? TY.

Hi kevin your video is awsome ,im new to micropython and programing, im having trouble selecting each servo individually on the pca 9685 and how to get them to move separetly .. when i plug the servo index 0 and the 15 the two servos does the same thing even when i tell them to do different degrees... do you have any ideas or tuto to help me figure it out ? Thx for your time.

Thank you very much, I've been following your videos for a while

I resume my project and I have a question.
How do I reset the positions on the PCA?
apparently they are saved and start simultaneously
try servo.release(index) but the position is maintained

It would be a great help

sorry for my english, i speak spanish

I'm getting no pca ?

Hi Kevin your got into great detail. How do I load the code on my pi pico do I use thonny and I don't know how use cat ? I'm. Using pca9685 servo board . What uf2 do I use ?please as like build a skull moving with a pan and tilt and one servo to move the jaw . I
Anyone any help please

hi what uf2 file are running your programme in as i no unstruc or no pca9685 not found what do i need to install first please kevin as servo isn't running

Can it works with a program made with C? How would it be?

Thanks for the amazing video. I grabbed your code and it worked the first time!!

Hi kevin,I got a error can you help me .this — importerror: no module named 'adafruit_servokit'

Can I use two of these boards and connect them to Pico W to use more than 16 servos? I need to use 18 servos for a hexapod project and I can't find a solution for that

I've got my PCA9685 board set up as per tutorial, but running the i2c.scan() function just returns "[ ]". Does anyone have any suggestions? I've triple checked the wiring

thanks for taking time to write the MicroPython code for PCA9685. I didn't want to go down the circuit python route so this is just what I needed ✌

Thanks Kevin, very interesting. Your recent Pico 2 live streams got me interested in this.

"Solder" comes from the French souder iirc and the L was added because it's rude in British English, as you said. American English doesn't have that word, so there's no concern. In Canada they pronounce the L.

I know this probably an old question but could you explain why, when I try to install the zip file onto a pico connected to a RPi4 I consistently get a long error message. I have no problem with other zip files. It appears to run someway through the process and then crashes.

i need you PCA9685 class of Python, ie rpi zero or rpi5

Hello Kevin, the base code works wonderfully, but when i try to chang the id of the servo pin, like id = 0 to id = 4, it says that it doesn't exist. What is the fix for that?