What is it?

The 640 (Six for Zero) board is a DC and Stepper motor control board capable of powering 6 independent DC motors (from 2 – 11v) or 3 stepper motors.

DC motors are cheap, easy to get and simple to wire up – so you can quickly and easily get a robot up and running. We have developed libraries in Python and C++, and are working on others, to enable you to get your robot moving with minimal effort.

The 640 board also has 2 additional connections for servos or LEDs, so you can add camera mounts, lights or grippers with minimal effort.

640 board technical specification

Each 640 board has:

• 6 full H-Bridges
• Can power 6 DC motors or 3 stepper motors (or other combination)
• 1.5A output current per H-Bridge
• Motor voltage 2V – 11V
• I2C interface
• 5 Address pins – stack up to 32 boards to run 192 DC motors
• 2 Powered PWM outputs for Servos or LEDs
• 1 CPPM input for RC receivers (5V safe)

What makes it special?

Robots should be capable of exploring and heading to places you sometimes can’t follow.

Whilst Bluetooth game controllers, WiFi and infra-red controllers are great and relatively easy to set up, and use, they all have low range limits – some even down to a few meters.

We needed to be able to send our robots further away – yet always have the ability to take control when we needed to. Rather than invent something new, we looked at what other drone and robot builders were using and decided to follow their lead and use Radio Control.

Both the 640 and ESCAPE boards have a dedicated CPPM / PPM-SUM header on them to make it as easy as possible to connect and use a Radio Control transmitter and receiver.