Protoboard & Servo - need some advice.

Taerzik

I'm a relatively inexperienced hobbyist and I'm trying to get a feel for working with servos. For experimenting I picked up three Hitec Feather servos (itty bitty tiny things) to use in learning to control servos and learn about programming the propeller.
I have several propeller protoboards so I'm wanting to use what I've already got. I've run some basic tutorials, no sweat, but when it comes to servos I can't seem to find a tutorial that covers the nuances of the propeller protoboard.
If there's a good simple tutorial out there could you point me to it? Or even a simple project that covers enough of the basics that I can follow it?

Thanks

Clock Loop

This item?

http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerDevelopmentBoards/tabid/514/CategoryID/73/List/0/SortField/0/catpageindex/2/Level/a/ProductID/423/Default.aspx

Before using this you need to follow the instructions at the beginning of the manual, and because you want to do servos, you must also solder and configure the servo areas, also.
http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/prod/prop/32212-32812-PropellerProtoBoard-v1.3.pdf

Taerzik

Thanks

That's the one.
For sake of conversation, let's say I have the pins installed (I have everything else from the accessory kit installed including the norcomp connector).
What I can't tell is, which orientation to connect the servo plug. I know I have to hook up the signal line but is it the outer row of pins or inner row (the set of servo sockets, as oriented to the board.)
I have yet to come across a tutorial or instructions for this. Even the manual doesn't seem to clearly indicate which row is for signal. I can infer from the diagram that it's either the top or bottom row but I'm not sure which is which on the physical layout.
Maybe I'm just missing something that's right in front of me...

Duane Degn

There are four holes just outside of the white servo connection boxes. One end of a wire is soldered into one of these holes and the other end is soldered to one of the I/O holes. This allows you to choose whichever pin you like to control the servo.

There are small white lines showing where these holes are electrically connected to the servo headers.

So the pins on the inside of the board are the signal pins. The pins closest to the outside of the board are ground. The power pins are the center pins.

The power pins are not connected to a power line until you set the jumper to either "Vin" or "5+". This gives a choice on what voltage you want to use with your servos.

There are other white lines on the board showing other shared connections. Each I/O pin has a pair of holes associated with it. There's a long ground bus marked Vss on the servo end of the board. There are several other Vss buses near the power regulators. There's a 5+ bus and a 3.3V bus as well.

Taerzik

Thanks Duane!

In retrospect, that makes perfect sense, why would the signal line, which has to be connected by hand for obvious reasons, be on the outside. Nevertheless, I wish the manual has spelled that out.