penma's corner on the web

Servo tester board (version 1)

The board turned on, powered by USB, with a single servo attached. The displayed value is 1.5 and the servo is approximately in the center position.

The back of the board, showing an ATmega168, four 74HC595 shift registers, a few small SMD components, and a bad soldering job that almost resulted in burnt PCB traces.

What?

A small board to plug one or two 3-pin RC servos into for testing purposes that I made back in 2017.

Use the potis to adjust the servo's position. The current setting is indicated on the display.

Many servos accept positioning signals outside the nominal 1.0 to 2.0 ms range. The board can generate signals from 0.5 to 2.5 ms. (Closely observe the servo to check it is not permanently overloaded by being driven against mechanical limits!)

Why?

For testing if a random servo works at all.
To work on the mechanical part of a project first, before having to prototype a controller for it.
To get something mechanically more reliable than a test setup on solderless breadboard.

Code and board

Schematic and board files (Eagle), code (October 2017).