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SMT or Throught hole design for a dev board — Parallax Forums

SMT or Throught hole design for a dev board

octaloctal Posts: 67
edited 2011-02-24 10:07 in Propeller 1
Hello,
I'm trying to desing a little general purpose dev board for Propeller, mainly to provide it as a support to some courses about programming Propeller chip.
I wanted to know you opinion about a design element.
Do you think it will be better to make it SMT or throught hole (using DIP) PCB board?

I personally tend to think that while SMT is nice (and cheaper) for final products, and for professionnal looking prototypes, I prefer to have through holes dev boards, because it makes it easier to plugin additionnal modules, to hack connections on existing components, and to connect grabbers and clips to monitor signals using simple and cheap measurement tools.

What's your opinion?

Comments

  • ColeyColey Posts: 1,112
    edited 2011-02-24 03:38
    Hi octal,

    I would go through hole initially just for ease of development.
    Propeller is so easy to prototype with and very robust.....

    Have you considered the Propeller Platform Module?


    Propeller Platform
    168.jpg

    There's also an SMT version with uSD and USB.


    Propeller Platform USB
    257.jpg

    Martin Hodge has done an Arduino Shield Compatible Propeller board too....

    Propeller ASC

    DSCF0056s.JPG

    Regards,

    Coley
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2011-02-24 10:07
    Check out the 4 packs of the Propeller USB ProtoBoard - you can't beat the price. See

    http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerDevelopmentBoards/tabid/514/CategoryID/73/List/0/SortField/0/Level/a/ProductID/674/Default.aspx

    As others have mentioned, GG's Propeller Platfrom and Martins Propeller ASC are also good choices.

    I also offer Propteus (see link in my sig)

    Any way you go, your students will have fun!
    octal wrote: »
    Hello,
    I'm trying to desing a little general purpose dev board for Propeller, mainly to provide it as a support to some courses about programming Propeller chip.
    I wanted to know you opinion about a design element.
    Do you think it will be better to make it SMT or throught hole (using DIP) PCB board?

    I personally tend to think that while SMT is nice (and cheaper) for final products, and for professionnal looking prototypes, I prefer to have through holes dev boards, because it makes it easier to plugin additionnal modules, to hack connections on existing components, and to connect grabbers and clips to monitor signals using simple and cheap measurement tools.

    What's your opinion?
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