16-Channel 12-bit PWM Servo Shield I2C Interface

16-Channel 12-bit PWM Servo Shield I2C Interface

You want to make a cool robot, maybe a hexapod walker, or maybe just a piece of art with a lot of moving parts. Or maybe you want to drive a lot of LEDs with precise PWM output. Then you realize that your microcontroller has a limited number of PWM outputs!

What now? You could give up OR you could just get our handy PWM and Servo driver shield. It's now Arduino-ready and works with any Arduino that uses shields: Uno , Mega , ADK , its all good.

Using only two pins, control 16 free-running PWM outputs! You can even chain up 62 breakouts to control up to 992 PWM outputs

• It's an I2C-controlled PWM driver with a built in clock. That means that, unlike the TLC5940 family, you do not need to continuously send it signal tying up your microcontroller, its completely free running!

• It is 5V compliant, which means you can control it from a 3.3V microcontroller and still safely drive up to 6V outputs (this is good for when you want to control white or blue LEDs with 3.4+ forward voltages)

• 6 address select pins so you can wire up to 62 of these on a single i2c bus, a total of 992 outputs - that's a lot of servos or LEDs

• Adjustable frequency PWM up to about 1.6 KHz

• 12-bit resolution for each output - for servos, that means about 4us resolution at 60Hz update rate

• Configurable push-pull or open-drain output

• Output enable pin to quickly disable all the outputs

We wrapped up this lovely chip into a breakout board with a couple nice extras