November 8, 2008

There seem to be a problem when using software serial between the Arduino and the Micro Serial Servo Controller caused by a flicker in the output pin.

When booting the arduino will set the digital io pins to HIGH however when you do the following in your program "pinMode(tx,OUTPUT);" to switch the pin mode to output, the pin value will drop to LOW and then when you put it back to HIGH (the normal idle serial level) using "digitalWrite(tx, HIGH);" the Micro Serial Servo Controller thinks you are attempting to send a serial command and will go into error state.

The proper way to initialize your pin is to activate the internal pull up resistor and then switch the mode to output with the following commands:
c Code

digitalWrite(tx, HIGH); //Activate the pull up resistor
pinMode(tx,OUTPUT); //Change pin mode to output

This removes the small flicker that the Micro Serial Servo Controller doesn't like. This has been tested and works properly using the Mini SSC and the Pololu modes with a software serial at 9600 baud.