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Mechanical Design for Breadboardable Stamp Serial Programming Port — Parallax Forums

Mechanical Design for Breadboardable Stamp Serial Programming Port

Bill ChennaultBill Chennault Posts: 1,198
edited 2009-01-09 02:50 in BASIC Stamp
All--

I have built three or four Stamp serial programming ports that plug into a breadboard. They all worked. However, the mechanical design has always been mickey mouse. Does anyone have a good mechanical design they might share with me?

Thanks!

--Bill

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Comments

  • remmi870remmi870 Posts: 79
    edited 2009-01-08 23:42
    what do you mean by mechanical design? something like a better serial interface to the breadboard? if that is the case, i would recommend having a board commercialy made up that you can interface easily, or just take a 9pin din plug and solder wires to a header to make it easier to plug in, the "whip" if you will can be fassend or secured to the board or a backplane so you get some sort of stress relief.
  • Bill ChennaultBill Chennault Posts: 1,198
    edited 2009-01-08 23:55
    remmi870--

    By "better mechanical design", I mean something I can plug into a breadboard and have it stay together without danger of pins shorting or wires pulling out of holes, etc. I understand that anything like this will never be truly mechanically solid. But, it would not take much to be better than mine, although they work.

    I thought that someone may have designed a very good component that I could copy or buy and simply plug into the breadboard and jumper to the proper pins on the Stamp.

    In no sense am I an electronics expert. I struggle. In this particular case, it looks like I am not much of a mechanical design expert, either! (I would really just like to have a part that would eliminate me building both the simple electronics and figuring out how to hold it all together.)

    --Bill

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    You are what you write.
  • remmi870remmi870 Posts: 79
    edited 2009-01-09 00:12
    like i previously wrote, if your having issues with the board holding your components in, you could try hot gluing components to your breadboard, and as far as serial connections, i recommend making a small serial connector "whip" or lead end that you can plug into your board and affix but not worry about comming loose. if you dont care about using a breadboard, you can always go to the "radioshaft" and pick up a pc board that has the solder hole and pad to do tracework, but it takes more time. if money isnt an option, or you want something more professional, there are websites out there where you can make your own PC board using software, and if you confine it to a specific size, you can get 3 boards done at once for around 51 bucks, out the door before shipping.
  • Bill ChennaultBill Chennault Posts: 1,198
    edited 2009-01-09 00:41
    remmi870--

    Gee. I never thought about long leads and hot glue wherever I need it.

    I have a tracked vehicle affectionately known as Ugly Buster. He is a very powerful little machine and likes carpet as well as rocks and grass and snow. (Ha! I've never run him on a wood floor!)·The gearmotors·get 24 amp hours from two parallel 12 volt lead acid batteries.·Five Stamps control him; a BS2p40 "Master" and four BS2 "Slaves." The Slaves are dedicated to single tasks, such as counting encoder pulses or sending commands to HB-25s to control the gearmotors. The Master receives feedback from the dedicated encoder-counter Slaves and sends appropriate commands to the HB-25s to keep the tracks aligned. I do not use SERIN/SEROUT because I am afraid of the inherent delays. I use direct Master pin to Slave pin--via the appropriate resistor--communication with five pins of the Master dedicated to each slave. This uses up 20 I/O pins on the Master, but there are plenty left and communication is VERY fast.

    Currently, the slaves are OEM-BS2 devices. This works fine, but takes up too much vertical space and is not as rigid as the BS2 module plugged into a breadboard. The Master is a BS2p40 module plugged directly into the breadboard. It gets its power from a VDD output from one of the Slaves.

    What I want to do is get rid of the OEM-BS2s and replace them with BS2 modules plugged directly·into the breadboard. Although I think I can operate all 5 processors with one power regulator, it would be no big deal to build five, which is what I will probably do.

    However, once I get rid of the OEM-BS2s, I lose those nice DB9 connectors! That is why I want something more solid than my existing home-brew connector that lets my laptop program the BS2p40 Master. I think you have given me a simple solution.

    Thanks!

    --Bill

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    You are what you write.
  • UghaUgha Posts: 543
    edited 2009-01-09 02:39
    I'd recommend keeping the OEM-BS2s and find a better way to mount them. You can de-solder the L shaped pins and add in straight pins... that way you can stick the board flat against the
    breadboard and either zip-tie it or something of the like to increase stability.

    Just watch out for the bare solder joints on the back of the board, you don't want them to rest on something metal and short. You could cover the bottom in electrical tape to insulate it or come up
    with some other cheap solution.

    If you want other ideas for re-arranging your stamps, let me know. I've become something of an expert of trying to do the impossible without the proper resources (IE: mcguyvering everything).
  • Bill ChennaultBill Chennault Posts: 1,198
    edited 2009-01-09 02:50
    "mcguyver"--

    Hey! I like that idea! I am going to think about it. It should not be hard to do implement.

    Thanks!

    --Bill

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    You are what you write.
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