Overview
The Micro Maestro is the smallest of Pololu’s second-generation USB servo controllers. The Maestros are available in four sizes and can be purchased fully assembled or as partial kits:
- Micro Maestro - fully assembled
- Micro Maestro - partial kit
- Mini Maestro 12 - fully assembled
- Mini Maestro 12 - partial kit
- Mini Maestro 18 - fully assembled
- Mini Maestro 18 - partial kit
- Mini Maestro 24 - fully assembled
- Mini Maestro 24 - partial kit
The Mini Maestros offer higher channel counts and some additional features (see the Maestro comparison table below for details).
The Micro Maestro is a highly versatile servo controller and general-purpose I/O board in a highly compact (0.85""×1.20"") package. It supports three control methods: USB for direct connection to a computer, TTL serial for use with embedded systems, and internal scripting for self-contained, host controller-free applications. The channels can be configured as servo outputs for use with radio control (RC) servos or electronic speed controls (ESCs), as digital outputs, or as analog inputs. The extremely precise, high-resolution servo pulses have a jitter of less than 200 ns, making these servo controllers well suited for high-performance applications such as robotics and animatronics, and built-in speed and acceleration control for each channel make it easy to achieve smooth, seamless movements without requiring the control source to constantly compute and stream intermediate position updates to the Micro Maestro. Units can be daisy-chained with additional Pololu servo and motor controllers on a single serial line.
A free configuration and control program is available for Windows and Linux, making it simple to configure and test the device over USB, create sequences of servo movements for animatronics or walking robots, and write, step through, and run scripts stored in the servo controller. The Micro Maestro’s 1 KB of internal script memory allows storage of servo positions that can be automatically played back without any computer or external microcontroller connected.
Because the Micro Maestro’s channels can also be used as general-purpose digital outputs and analog inputs, they provide an easy way to read sensors and control peripherals directly from a PC over USB, and these channels can be used with the scripting system to enable creation of self-contained animatronic displays that respond to external stimuli and trigger additional events beyond just moving servos.
The Micro Maestro is available fully assembled with 0.1? male header pins installed as shown in the product picture or as a partial kit, which ship with these header pins included but unsoldered, allowing the use of different gender connectors or wires to be soldered directly to the pads for lighter, more compact installations. The Mini Maestro 12, 18, and 24 are also available fully assembled or as partial kits.
A USB A to mini-B cable (not included) is required to connect this device to a computer. The Micro and Mini Maestros have 0.086? diameter mounting holes that work with #2 and M2 screws.
