{"product_id":"soldered-pwm-servo-driver-16-channel-12-bit-pca9685-breakout","title":"Soldered PWM \u0026 Servo Driver 16-Channel 12-bit PCA9685 breakout","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis breakout drives up to 16 hobby servos or PWM-controlled outputs from a single I2C connection, so you do not have to tie up sixteen timer-capable pins on your microcontroller. It is built around the NXP PCA9685, which generates all sixteen signals from its own 25 MHz oscillator: once you have written a channel's on and off times, the board keeps that pulse running without further attention from your code.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEach channel has 12-bit resolution, meaning 4096 steps across the period, and the PWM frequency is shared by all sixteen outputs and programmable from roughly 24 Hz to 1526 Hz. At the 50 Hz hobby servos expect, that resolution gives you fine positioning; at higher frequencies the same outputs work for LED dimming or for feeding the inputs of a motor driver.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eServo power comes in through the 5 mm screw terminal on its own rail, so motor current never travels through your microcontroller's supply. A P-channel MOSFET on that input protects the board if you wire the supply backwards, and a 100 µF bulk capacitor next to it absorbs the current spikes servos produce as they start moving.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eYou connect over I2C through either of the two Qwiic connectors, with no soldering and the second one free for chaining the next board, or through the header, which also breaks out the output enable pin and the servo power rail. Six solder jumpers set address bits so the board can sit anywhere from 0x40 to 0x7F.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eArduino and MicroPython libraries are both available. Each gives you a setServoAngle() call that takes a channel and an angle in degrees, with the pulse range configurable, plus raw setPWM() access when you would rather work in tick counts yourself.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Soldered Electronics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":65934743601501,"sku":"333191","price":11.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0990\/5029\/1549\/files\/333191_photo_c0eb9f_626937f2-4af5-4173-81c7-c65549565b8d.webp?v=1789549674","url":"https:\/\/soldered.com\/products\/soldered-pwm-servo-driver-16-channel-12-bit-pca9685-breakout","provider":"Soldered Electronics","version":"1.0","type":"link"}