Project needs multiple PWM

Question

I'm working on a project that needs three (or more) PWM pins to work. But unlike Arduino, the Raspberry PI B+ has just one PWM pin. I've searched for solutions and I found that I can use the WiringPi to emulate PWM using software. Is this the best solution? Anybody has a better one?

There's also pigpio that can do software PWM, see http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/41140/gpio-library-for-c/41141#41141 Sorry, Joan, I didn't see your answer while posting this comment. Anyway the linked Q&A is related - to whom it may concern. — Ghanima, Jan 18 '16 at 15:04

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 17 '18 at 19:02

2

The Raspberry Pi B+ has two accessible dedicated hardware PWM channels.

Hardware timed PWM is available on all the accessible GPIO.

See my pigpio library.

edited Dec 17 '18 at 19:02

Community

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answered Jan 18 '16 at 13:13

joan

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Is this a good solution for servos and acceleration control? – bodruk Jan 18 '16 at 13:13
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Yes to servos. What do you mean by acceleration control? If you mean varying a DC motor speed then yes. – joan Jan 18 '16 at 13:21
Is this lib similar to WiringPi? – bodruk Jan 18 '16 at 13:41
Not really. The library is written in C. That's the only thing in common. – joan Jan 18 '16 at 14:23

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '16 at 18:37

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Studying the WiringPI library I found that I can easily handle the PWN on any pin:

# GPIO port numbers  
import wiringpi2 as wiringpi  
wiringpi.wiringPiSetupGpio()  
wiringpi.pinMode(25, 0) # sets GPIO 25 to input  
wiringpi.pinMode(24, 1) # sets GPIO 24 to output  
wiringpi.pinMode(18, 2) # sets GPIO 18 to PWM mode

answered Jan 18 '16 at 18:37

bodruk

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I'm not sure if wiringPi can drive both the dedicated PWM channels. wiringPi PWM on arbitary GPIO will be software timed, servos in particular may have problems with jitter. – joan Jan 19 '16 at 12:40

Project needs multiple PWM

2 Answers2