I just discovered your site after browsing Jameco’s site and finding your Mini Maestro.
I’m making a servo multiplexer to use a standard 3 channel RC radio to control multiple servos. The receiver has the standard AUX, Steer & Throttle channels. I want to use the AUX channel to decide which of several servos to control with the steering channel.
ie:
AUX position A: front steering
AUX position B: rear steering
AUX position C: front and rear steer, same direction
AUX position D: front and rear steer opposite direction
AUX position E: front differential lock servo
AUX position F: rear differential lock servo
and so on.
I’ve got around 6 servos I’d like to be able control. After changing the AUX channel to a different mode, the servo should maintain the position it is in when you leave that mode. My current working solution (well not WORKING yet, but…) is to use my Arduino to take the signals in and decide what signals to output to what servos, but the Maestros caught my eye.
I looked around here on your site and found this thread:
that would indicate that none of Poloulu’s products does what I want out of the box. But I wanted to specifically ask the question anyway.
The Maestro’s can not process a Servo PWM signal and tell “me” the position that the receiver is telling a servo to go to?
The other question is fairly simple, are the Pololu connector housings #1902 and the associated female crimp on connectors the right ones to plug into my RC Receiver?
Yes, the Maestros cannot process an incoming PWM signal - and I do not know of a better solution than doing it yourself on an AVR. Note that you could still use a Maestro to offload some of the work if you find that the Arduino is having trouble doing everything.
Our female connectors are square, so they will not mate well with normal RC receivers, which have beveled corners. You might be able to squeeze them in or file down the corners to get them to fit, but our servo extension cables would probably work better for you. You can cut extension cables in half and crimp or solder the other end to whatever other connectors you need.
Thanks for the information, I will keep the Maestros in mind if my Arduino needs to offload driving the servos.
It would appear to me that a servo MUX would be a good product addition to your line. Three channel RC radios are much cheaper than their multi-channel cousins, and often it isn’t necessary to actively control more than 2 at a time. If the RC Switch product that you have could be modified to output either an analog signal or an integer value (serial out) dependent upon the incoming Servo PWM signal, the Maestro could then use that to determine what signals go out on which servo ports.
Just to be clear, what you are talking about is a demultiplexer - we already sell a servo multiplexer.
I agree that it could be a useful product. One of the reasons that we have not done it yet is that a demux naturally should have a bunch of configuration options - like what the channels should do when deselected or what the valid positions of the AUX channel are. Thanks for the suggestion!
