Episode 12 - micro:bit water xylophone

We have been hard at work building our next crazy microbit project and this time it's musical!
As part of Maplins #Musicalmicrobits competition we have designed an built a water xylophone take a look at how far we have got and what was involved in making it.
To see the micropython code for our xylophone visit our github project page github.com/gin...
Not got a microbit yet? No problems head over to your nearest maplin and pick one up now www.maplin.co.u...

[@owenbrotherwood1390]

I am still so amazed at this fantastic project

[@gort59]

Love your project and the Micro bit!

[@Tech_Brigadier]

I like the video Question: sir micro:bit has only 3 GPIO pins how did you attach so many servo motors to it

[@MicroMonsters]

We used an external motor controller the PCA9685 connected to the microbit

[@scrapeape]

Can you point me in the direction of decent servos to use for this kind of project? I've never really been in the market for servos and don't know if the cheapo ones that control RC airplanes have a rotation speed that's fast enough for this kind of thing (like SG90s that have a speed of .3 sec per 60 degrees), but it looks like that's what you might be using...

[@MicroMonsters]

Yes they are just cheap sg90 clones from eBay. For low torque usage they are fine but for a robot arm we have built they very quickly break the plastic gears when under load so we used mg90s for that with metal gears

[@nztuber]

Great inspiration, thank you! Question: You're powering your micro:bit with a 3v battery pack, and the servo driver with a 6v battery pack, right?

[@MicroMonsters]

Yes that's right you could probably power 1 or 2 servos from the microbit on its one but anything more, or if you need to power stronger servos you need a dedicated power source

[@Juggling0o0]

l like idea