Pololu Maestro Control Center export to Arduino

Support Servo controllers and servos
1

I am a simple and honest man, I saw this : # Mini Maestro 12-Channel USB Servo Controller and I loved it.

That is all I need to my project, I need to control around 6 servo some 180 others continuos rotary … but the point is that that hadware is perfectly integrated with the Pololu Maestro Control Center.

So for me it means I only need to install the software + wire the servos + configure the software + upload … that easy. I see that I can skip 200hours of learning servo programming and pain of verifiying code.

But I am a simple crafter … I see the price and I get scared, meanwhile arduino servo shields are sold for less than 4$ … and on the other hand the Maestro 12-channel is for over 30$.

So my main doubt is:

  • Can I use an arduino servo shield with an arduino uno and somehow export the code from Maestro Control Center?

I imagine I wont have the real time controlling as the hadware of Pololu compability does … but hey !!! I am not a professional that can invest that much in hadware. Actually all the servos I have I got them for 30$ in total and they are MG996R

Anyway, any advise would be very appreciated, even though I probably end up getting the Pololu servo controller hadware, I still need to understand if I can export to arduino some how, as I can split the diagram to 2 hadwares … the pololu and arduino nano.

Please be honest, I already know how good Pololu hadware is.

Thanks

2

Hello.

Thank you for your compliments. We do not have a way to export a Maestro script into a format that you can directly use to program Arduinos.

You should not need to add a shield to an Arduino in order to control servos. In most cases, you can just use its GPIO pins with the Arduino servo library. In general, there are a few advantages to using the Maestros (for one, they can generate extremely precise, high-resolution servo pulses, which makes for very low jitter), but if you already have an Arduino, you might just try using that in your application.

-Jon

3

Yeah that was my main concern the jitter.
I need them to be stable as max as possible.

But the most important thing was the prgramming speed. Can you imagine how long it is to write your own code of spped movements and directions using arduino and checking it after updating? Instead of real time …
What could you advise me of that part?
I still struggle with for(i++, i=0, move bitch motor);
You know ?

That is my main worry as in the video here looks very easy to handle

4

To test out your servo movement, you might consider making some kind of real-time setup with an Arduino that uses a potentiometer for input. You could get started on that with this Knob tutorial, which uses the Arduino servo library.

-Jon