Yet Another Cut-Down Proto Board

hippy

Inspired by the Nano, Femto Stamp, other hacked at ProtoBoards and the PropGFX Lite Dip40, my own vision of a DIP carrier board. 40-pin DIP, 2.0" x 1.2". Suitable for connecting to strip-board etc using through hole Molex pins and SIL sockets.

With some track cutting and some link wires, one can have P0-P15 down the left, top to bottom.. These can be contiguous if Vss/Vdd above P8 can be disconnected allowing two holes to come off the top and added to the bottom. Enough real estate to fit a 3V3 regulator and TV-Out resistors maybe even an audio RC. So far, artist's impression only ...

Post Edited (hippy) : 2/12/2008 12:49:46 PM GMT

Graham Stabler

Neat but I would do the same on the right as you have on the left and perhaps put the row of pins on the inside, that way you could easily attach a header or some permanently attached hardware.

hippy

I thought about that, but an even multiple of 0.1" spacing "felt better" for me, and I didn't see much use myself for a top header on the right pins. Everyone to their own though

On what I said of Vdd/Vss -- I'm starting to think "P0-P7, Vdd, Vss, P8-P15, Vdd, Vss" on the left is actually more convenient, and less work.

The bottom horizontal row would work well for a Molex header, and if 0.1" sockets and another socket at the top row ( or for P7-P0 ), a strip-board with tracking top to bottom can piggy-back on top. That would allow otherwise N/C P16-P24 to drive interfaces on the piggy-back, TV, VGA, audio, even bit-banged serial or USB.

It's perhaps more flexible and useful than I thought for people like me who tend to build circuits to prove something or other then move onto another and want to re-use the Propeller Chip.

Fred Hawkins

NB, the white line suggests that your third row is common (labeled vss).

hippy

@ Fred : Good point and well spotted. Isolating the pad on the left ( for P2 ) could mean drilling out the entire hole or maybe the one to its right.

dfletch

Hippy: Might be cool to put (well, mono) audio on p2, and build your RC between p2 and the common "vss" line. If you're going stereo, maybe that could solve half of it. So you'd just shift your cut to be between the p1/p2 columns.

Cheers,

--fletch

UPDATE: Heh or you could use (external) pins 2 and 37 for stereo and build rc's between p2 and the left side and perhaps p0 or p1 on the right. Seems like it would minimize the number of jumpers you'd need

Post Edited (dfletch) : 2/13/2008 3:37:10 AM GMT

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

On my own cut-down, I left 5 rows of holes on each side resulting in a square about the size of a Pentium II cpu.
In retrospect, I think I like the idea of bringing it down to two rows with with a set of female pin headers on the
top and male on the bottom. Then create a small motherboard with audio/IO/etc for it to plug into.

Best of all worlds, small size, portability(can be dropped into other projects), and quick I/O connections. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

OBC

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
New to the Propeller?

Getting started with the Protoboard? - Propeller Cookbook
Got an SD card? - PropDOS
A Living Propeller FAQ - The Propeller Wiki
(Got the Knowledge? Got a Moment? Add something today!)

dfletch

Oh yes, and re: the vss/vdd above p8: Looking at my own protoboard, the vdd in the corner looks easy to slice, but the vss is a big pad surrounding the pin. It would have to be drilled out.

hippy

@ dfletch : I think a contiguous P0-P7 would be most useful for general purpose use. The small area at the bottom allows P23 to go to a leg which could serve as Mono Audio ( without the RC ) or other signalling, and vertical mount R's on P20-P22 give TV-Out, so only P16-P19 not easily accessible in "DIL" format, although jump-wires can go to the unused legs top right. I would add a minimal two resistor (non-programming) serial interface for my own purposes (SI/SO).

@ OBC : I really like the beauty of the absolutely smallest square cut-out with 0.1" legs but a bit impractical for strip-board.

The nice thing about ProtoBoard cut-downs is that people can have whatever they want. It's really all about sowing the seeds of ideas.

jazzed

Now all you need is an APPMOD row [noparse]:)[/noparse]

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
--jazzed·... about·living in·http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley

Traffic is slow at times, but Parallax orders·always get here fast 8)

JoMo

Yeah a chopped protoboard arrangement is great when you want a fully functional prop to play with that has·a really small footprint, and you don't need the vreg etc.
I use a diamond coated cutting disk with my dremel to cut my protoboard·down to just big enough to put a row of right angle headers on all 4 sides and a header for the prop plug and a 2 pin·power supply header and I get a tight, flat·lil'·prop module·about 1.5" square.
This arrangement lets the board act as a module rather than a 'protoboard'. Any hardware·external to it, including device interface hardware is handled on another board that just plugs onto the prop-module.
It makes for a nice object oriented·system plugin.
I have a few prop sticks but I like this chopped 'module'·better and it's less expensive too.
Conversion takes about and hour but it's worth the time and effort. In fact, I wish they sold em that way. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
-Joe



Post Edited (JoMo) : 2/14/2008 3:55:01 AM GMT