• SC-8000 Board Details
• Specifications
• Easy "Serial Port" Programming

Specifications

 

Number of Servo Channels	8
Number of Digital IO	4
USB->Serial protocol	9600-N-8-1
Minimum Pulse Width*	600 usec
Maximum Pulse Width*	2200 usec
Pulse Resolution	0.1 usec
PPM Frame size	22.5 msec
+ shift PPM Output**	yes
- shift PPM Output**	yes
USB input connector	device B
Servo output connector	rt angle 3 row
Digital IO output connector	rt angle 2 row

* Although the usable pulse width range of modern servos are usually from 1000 usec to 2000 usec (1.0 to 2.0 msec) with servo center at 1500 usec (1.5 msec), many servos can go beyond this range with an actual larger travel range. The full pulse width range of the SC-8000 is 600 to 2200 usec to take advantage of the extended travel. The actual extended range will vary from different servo brands and types.

** A separate cable is required to connect the PPM output to your transmitter. Depending on your transmitter, a direct pin to pin connection will not work, as some conditioning circuitry is required at the cable.

Easy "Serial Port" Programming

A built-in USB to Serial converter/adapter (Cypress) allows simple programming. To the application, the SC8000 appears as a standard Serial Port. The actual COM port will usually be installed as COM3 by the driver. Multiple SC-8000 can be connected, theoretically all the way to COM256. A practical limit is probably 8 SC-8000 connected to a single PC.

The Serial Port is configured as: 9600, No Parity, 8 Data bits, 1 stop bit, no flow control. Communication can be done completely asynchronous, no handshaking is required. The RISC based Atmel Micro-Controller has a separate "state-machine" to handle communications. This means you can send data to the SC8000 while it is updating the PPM and Servo Position Pulse Widths, no need to wait for it to be "ready". Although probably not be needed, it is possible to update the SC-8000 to change the servo positions for every PPM frame.

Please see this section for the communication protocol.