PCA9685 Module alternatives

Projects General Guidance
1

I'm looking for information on alternatives to the generic PCA 9685 modules that are cheaply available for about $2.50 each. I'm looking for an option that allows easy changing of the board's address, preferably with pins on .1" (2.54mm) spacing with through holes for the address pins. The cheap modules do everything else I need but only have .05" spaced solder pads to hard set the address which are impractical to use to connect to a dip switch or pins of any kind.

I'm planning on building a PCB for each I2C to PWM module with a FET for each channel and need 32 boards in total with adjustable addresses.

As I'm hand soldering each board small pitch SMD are a pain and more so in large quantities so just using the bare chip is also impractical, never mind that they appear to cost more than the complete modules.

If there are any other options for PWM expanders out there that use I2C or SPI I'm open to those as well but I need something with a DIP package or module with .1" spacing on the pins and, of course, access to addressing pins. I need a total of 512 PWM channels with individual boards with 16 or 32 channels. Finally, cost is a factor, having to stay at least reasonably competitive with the PCA 9685 modules that offer 16 channels for about $2.50USD. 8bit PWM is enough for what I need since that's what the incoming data is.

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

2

The Adafruit PCA9685 board cost a bit more but allows you to set the I2C address using solder bridges.

If you insist in buying at the Chinese you can get clones of that board on ali in your price range. You just never know if these board actually work.

3

My success rate with these boards (from aliexpress) is 100%. Admittedly, the sample size is only 4, so no strong conclusions should be pulled from the data.

4

As noted above, there are ebay sellers with cheap versions that do have the address jumpers... this seller looks particularly (surprisingly) cheap: HiLetgo Pca9685 16 Channel 12 Bit PWM Servo Motor Driver IIC Module Arduino The for sale online | eBay - but lots of vendors sell that same board design. They even make it easy to daisychain them....

A brief examination of available parts on digikey suggests that there's not really any other option in DIP - using DIP parts is really limiting - they're basically all for legacy parts nowadays. All the new stuff is SMD (which isn't hard to solder once you learn drag soldering; drag soldering an SOIC chip is faster than soldering an equivilent DIP).

Are these LEDs you're controlling? Have you considered strings of WS2812 or WS2811 LEDs? Both are available in pre-made strips...