Controlling servos directly with Servoblaster

The previous recipe demonstrated using a dedicated servo controller to handle the control of the servos used by the PiBug. This has the advantage that any disturbances in the processing taking place on the Raspberry Pi does not cause interference with the delicate servo control (since the controller will continue to send the correct signals).

However, the Raspberry Pi is also capable of direct servo control. To achieve this we will make use of Richard Hurst's Servoblaster, which is a multiple servo driver.

In this recipe, we will control four servos attached to the MeArm, a simple laser-cut robot arm; however, you can choose to fit servos to whatever device you like.

The MeArm is a simple robot arm powered by four miniature servos

Getting ready

Most common servos will have three wires and a three pin connector as follows:

Black/Brown	Red	Orange/White/Yellow/Blue
Ground	Positive Supply (Typically 5V for small servos)	Signal

While it is usually...