• Mini Maestro 12 — fully assembled
• Mini Maestro 12 — partial kit
• Mini Maestro 18 — fully assembled
• Mini Maestro 18 — partial kit
• Mini Maestro 24 — fully assembled
• Mini Maestro 24 — partial kit

The Mini Maestros are highly versatile (and compact) servo controllers and general-purpose I/O boards. They support three control methods: USB for direct connection to a computer, TTL serial for use with embedded systems, and internal scripting for self-contained, host controller-free applications. The channels can be configured as servo outputs for use with radio control (RC) servos or electronic speed controls (ESCs), as digital outputs, or as analog/digital inputs. The extremely precise, high-resolution servo pulses have a jitter of less than 200 ns, making these servo controllers well suited for high-performance applications such as robotics and animatronics, and built-in speed and acceleration control for each channel make it easy to achieve smooth, seamless movements without requiring the control source to constantly compute and stream intermediate position updates to the Mini Maestros. The Mini Maestros also feature configurable pulse rates from 1 to 333 Hz and can generate a wide range of pulses, allowing maximum responsiveness and range from modern servos. Units can be daisy-chained with additional Pololu servo and motor controllers on a single serial line.

Main Features

• Three control methods: USB, TTL (5V) serial, and internal scripting
• 0.25?s output pulse width resolution (corresponds to approximately 0.025° for a typical servo, which is beyond what the servo could resolve)
• Pulse rate configurable from 1 to 333 Hz ⁽²⁾
• Wide pulse range of 64 to 4080 ?s ⁽²⁾
• Individual speed and acceleration control for each channel
• Channels can be optionally configured to go to a specified position or turn off on startup or error
• Alternate channel functions allow the channels to be used as:
  • General-purpose digital outputs (0 or 5 V)
  • Analog or digital inputs (channels 0 – 11 can be analog inputs; channels 12+ can be digital inputs)
  • One channel can be a PWM output with frequency from 2.93 kHz to 12 MHz and up to 10 bits of resolution
• A simple scripting language lets you program the controller to perform complex actions even after its USB and serial connections are removed
• Comprehensive user’s guide

• Free configuration and control application for Windows and Linux makes it easy to:
  • Configure and test your controller
  • Create, run, and save sequences of servo movements for animatronics and walking robots
  • Write, step through, and run scripts stored in the servo controller
• Two ways to write software to control the Maestro from a PC:
  • Virtual COM port makes it easy to send serial commands from any development environment that supports serial communication
  • Pololu USB Software Development Kit allows use of more advanced native USB commands and includes example code in C#, Visual Basic .NET, and Visual C++
• TTL serial features:
  • Supports 300 – 200,000 bps in fixed-baud mode, 300 – 115,200 bps in autodetect-baud mode ⁽²⁾
  • Simultaneously supports the Pololu protocol, which gives access to advanced functionality, and the simpler Scott Edwards MiniSSC II protocol (there is no need to configure the device for a particular protocol mode)
  • Can be daisy-chained with other Pololu servo and motor controllers using a single serial transmit line
  • Chain input allows reception of data from multiple Mini Maestros using a single serial receive line without extra components (does not apply to Micro Maestros)
  • Can function as a general-purpose USB-to-TTL serial adapter for projects controlled from a PC
• Our Maestro Arduino library makes it easier to get started controlling a Maestro from an Arduino or compatible boards like our A-Stars
• Board can be powered off of USB or a 5 – 16 V battery, and it makes the regulated 5V available to the user
• Upgradable firmware

Maestro Comparison Table

¹ This is the weight of the board without header pins or terminal blocks.
² The available pulse rate and range depend on each other and factors such as baud rate and number of channels used. See the Maestro User’s Guide for details.
³ The user script system is more powerful on the Mini Maestro than on the Micro Maestro. See See the Maestro User’s Guide for details.