The Adafruit 16-channel PWM/Servo shield is Adafruit's gift to servo or LED lovers. Using a miserly 2 x I2C pins on the Arduino or Orangepip the PWM shield gives you 12-bit resolution on PWM signals up to 1.6kHz. Not only is the PWM shield undemanding in terms of GPIO, once the PWM rate for a channel has been set there's no overhead on the Arduino, it can get on with other things. If one board isn't enough for your ambitions, the I2C address selection means you can have up to 62 of these boards for a total of 992 channels! Adafruit supplies a software library you can download and a tutorial to get you started.
Supplied as a fully assembled board plus 4 sets of 3 x 4 male straight headers, a 2-pin terminal block, and a row of 0.1in. header pins for you to solder on as needed. The Arduino, servos or LEDs are available separately. Available either as a breakout board or as an Arduino shield.
Drive 16 x servos or 16 x LEDs with 12-bit PWM up to 1.6kHz
5V compliant, compatible with 3.3V Arduino
Drive outputs up to 6V, ie LEDs with 3.4V Vf
I2C driver with built-in clock reduces microcontroller overhead
Terminal block for power with reverse polarity protection
Adafruit part no. 1411
*Customers looking to resell on eBay or Amazon should contact Adafruit directly.
