PWM / Servo Support

The STM32small Controller board has 4 dedicated channels of PWM support, although other PWM channels are pinned out on the board GPIO A0..3 (TIM2) is pinned out very specifically for ease of use with servo's in mind.   Thus a direct connection to most typical servo's is possible with control signal, power (5V) and ground all pinned out via the typical servo connection layout.

PWM signal in operation

Below is a screen capture of 3 of the 4 available channels being used to demo the controller driving 3 PWM signals independantly.

Note in this example the 20ms period typical of a servo signal and the board is being used to drive the three channels at 50%, 25% and 10% respectively.

It's also another pretty good capture from the USBee SX logic analyzer.

Alternative uses

Servo's don't have to be the primary use of these channels, the pin out also makes it easy to bring out power and control signals to LED dimming systems or any other off-board system that requires a PWM control signal and external power source @ 5V - but the board was designed primarily around these channels being available as servo channels (thus unlike some of the other peripheral pins - they are not brought to additional generic use headers).