Servo Board API

The kit can control multiple servos simultaneously. One Servo Board can control up to twelve servos.

Accessing the Servo Board

The servo board can be accessed using the servo_board property of the Robot object.

my_servo_board = robot.servo_board

This board object has an array containing the servos connected to it, which can be accessed as servos[0], servos[1], servos[2], etc. The servo board is labelled so you know which servo is which.

Tip

Remember that lists start counting at 0.

Setting servo positions

The position of servos can range from -1 to 1 inclusive:

# set servo 1's position to 0.2
robot.servo_board.servos[1].position = 0.2

# Set servo 2's position to -0.55
robot.servo_board.servos[2].position = -0.55

You can read the last value a servo was set to using similar code:

last_position = robot.servo_board.servos[11].position

Warning

While it is possible to retrieve the last position a servo was set to, this does not guarantee that the servo is currently in that position.

How the set position relates to the servo angle

Danger

You should be careful about forcing a servo to drive past its end stops. Some servos are very strong and it could damage the internal gears.

The angle of an RC servo is controlled by the width of a pulse supplied to it periodically. There is no standard for the width of this pulse and there are differences between manufacturers as to what angle the servo will turn to for a given pulse width. To be able to handle the widest range of all servos our hardware outputs a very wide range of pulse widths which in some cases will force the servo to try and turn past its internal end-stops. You should experiment and find what the actual limit of your servos are (it almost certainly won't be -1 and 1) and not drive them past that.