Hello!
I have bought Lynxmotion AL5D robotic arm (robotshop.com/en/lynxmotion … tware.html) and it includes the controlling board SSC-32U. How to connect the servo controller with Raspberry Pi so the controlling can be done via Raspberry Pi (and wifi)? Is it possible to connect the board with micro-usb cable or does it require usb to TTL serial cable?
Hi,
Great questions! Here are answers to them:
There are multiple options. The simplest is through the USB interface, since the SSC-32U already comes equipped with a FTDI 232 chip, which will translate between microcontroller level UART bus and USB port, creating a virtual COM port on Windows (or file for Unix/Linux/OSX).
You can also use the directly exposed TX/RX/GND pins. These are mostly useful when you need to control the SSC-32U using another microcontroller or special interface module.
Lastly, you can also use the Bee socket to connect an XBee, ZigBee, WifiBee, Bluetooth Bee, LoRa Bee, etc. Literally a world of possibilities here.
Do you mean that the SSC-32U and the RPi are connecting by a WiFi connection or that the RPi is connecting to the SSC-32U directly and the RPi itself is connected to WiFi?
Yes, see answer above.
You can also do that, though we strongly recommend to just use the USB port with a RPi as it is much more simple to do (and very easy!).
Also, please find example code in Python for the AL5 arms here. This code was developed and tested on a RPi 2 and should work on other RPis, too.
Big note: please be aware that the USB port only powers the USB/UART interface and not the electronics or servomotors on the SSC-32U. You will still need a proper power source on VS1 for the SSC-32U to be powered (typically a 6 V DC power source, such as the one provided with the AL5 kits).
We also recommend that you check out the SSC-32U manual for more details about, well, everything! 
It is quite short and full of information. We especially recommend checking out the power options and communication sections.
We hope this helps!
Sincerely,
Thank you for useful answer! We succeed to attach the RPi to the SSC-32 and the controlling works via RPi.
Very glad to learn that it works well for you. Good luck with your project!
Also, feel free to post about your project here or on our our project dedicated website, Let’s Make Robots.
Sincerely,
