Thanks for the advice and help with this.
When I said nothing was happening, the tide data was being correctly pulled using the API, and parsed into a usable format correctly. The calculations to set the duty cycle/angle all looked good (according to the print statements in the code), but the servos themselves just wouldn't move. The PCA9685 had 5v at the screw terminals from an external power supply, so I don't think it was a power issue and more likely something not right in the code (thanks ChatGPT...). The pins on the jumpers from the Pi to the PCA9685 were all soldered at the board. The board is showing at 0x40 and 0x70 when I run i2cdetect on the Pi.
I've managed to simplify the code a little and have got the servos working correctly one at a time directly from the Pi.
I thought 4 servos would be too many to run directly off the Pi 3B+, but if they're not all firing at the same time, and are only moving for a second every few hours for 3 of the servos, and every 15 minutes for the 4th, would that be doable without an external power supply for the servos, and without having to use the PCA9685 board?
Thanks again, this was not the simple learning experience I thought it would be.
When I said nothing was happening, the tide data was being correctly pulled using the API, and parsed into a usable format correctly. The calculations to set the duty cycle/angle all looked good (according to the print statements in the code), but the servos themselves just wouldn't move. The PCA9685 had 5v at the screw terminals from an external power supply, so I don't think it was a power issue and more likely something not right in the code (thanks ChatGPT...). The pins on the jumpers from the Pi to the PCA9685 were all soldered at the board. The board is showing at 0x40 and 0x70 when I run i2cdetect on the Pi.
I've managed to simplify the code a little and have got the servos working correctly one at a time directly from the Pi.
I thought 4 servos would be too many to run directly off the Pi 3B+, but if they're not all firing at the same time, and are only moving for a second every few hours for 3 of the servos, and every 15 minutes for the 4th, would that be doable without an external power supply for the servos, and without having to use the PCA9685 board?
Thanks again, this was not the simple learning experience I thought it would be.
Statistics: Posted by Allstar3000 — Sun Jan 26, 2025 1:50 am