coreyfro
Member
Arduino is usefully partially because of its sometimes annoying, but primarily useful "shield" implementation. Alas, because of the AWESOMENESS on the Maple's header, and maple honoring the Arduino profile, shields will make getting to the header hard.
Risers will fix this, of course, but I would, personally, love to tack on an angled header facing edge-ward.
Just my $0.019
poslathian
LeafLabs
Message received. We use risers, but I do prefer the lower profile that would be enabled by an angled header. Of course, an angled header would make maple-specific shields more difficult/impossible to use the side header.
Perhaps lower profile/more expensive style header could help here, where it doesnt interfere with most shield profiles, but still allows maple specific daughterboards to plug in to an upward facing header.
coreyfro
Member
Yeah, I imagined this conversation happening in your company. I also imagine that, at present volume, it doesn't make sense to have options.
I will tell you what I was thinking about doing, personally, but it's a little kludgey.
If I were to make a maple shield:
I would start with putting an 18 pin male header on the Maple. This would allow it to mate with a ribbon cable or a "Maple Shield" with a female header soldered to the bottom.
There is a problem, however. Ribbon connectors are taller than the space between two boards with male and female headers interfacing.
So, what I was planning on doing with my board, and this is where the kludge comes in, I was going to have the male pins come up through the bottom of the maple. I would press the pins through the plastic retainer so they would not make contact with a hypothetical chassis, and to get as much length out of the pins as possible. I would then solder them from the top side. Then, apply ribbon or "maple shield."
Not a process that lends its self to mass production, but an idea.
coreyfro
Member
Just to make sure my point is clear, here are some images. The idea works and leaves a 1/32" for clearance for the ribbon cable:
Ribbon connector flush with the board
http://www.coreyfro.com/arduino/IMG_1211.JPG
Pin Retainer on the opposite side of the board
http://www.coreyfro.com/arduino/IMG_1215.JPG
Bottom Profile of Ribbon and Headers
http://www.coreyfro.com/arduino/IMG_1217.JPG
Top Profile of the Ribbon and Headers
http://www.coreyfro.com/arduino/IMG_1219.JPG
I was able to quickly make these headers by pressing them in a vise into a ribbon connector.
I think we just need future boards to not have the middle header not populated at all. Allow us to decide what we want on it. I mean heck 99.999% of your customers wield a soldering iron with ease right?
This would allow standard "shields" (i hate that name) to mate to the maple and let us decide how to use the rest.
Just my pennies on this train of thought.
Silntknight
Moderator
Why not put some low-profile headers on the backside? At least any implementation I would ever use would have the Maple mounted in some way, so it wouldn't be hard to just adapt to using the backside. It might also be good if the Maple is mounted on top of whatever it might be controlling. You get access to the top (for shields, buttons, just looking at it...) while the important hook-ups can go straight to the implementation without much clutter.
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