What I've needed for years is solder-able prototype boards (PCB, not breadboard) with holes along top and left that will align with the pin header & power header of BOE (and Homework). I'm teaching and need to build/strip several WAM / BOEBOT circuits each hour. That is a real drag when talking about the jumpers and resistors for a 7 seg display. I'd like to solder the circuit for each activity on a set of boards with male headers pins on the bottom. Then I can just press the appropriate populated (soldered) board into BOE female headers so it sits above the breadboard. Swap-outs would be easy.
Sounds easy so I bought several boards from the Shack and then Digi and others. But the BOE's two female headers (pins and power) are not exactly on the same 0.1 pitch grid. If I line up the holes for the power header then the pins header is not aligned with holes. One is about half a row off from the other. So putting male pins on the bottom of a generic board has not worked for me.
I don't have the skills to design a board with proper location of holes for headers strips. It would be great if someone knew how to measure that and put into a design file. I would send to a PCB fabricator and get 30 pieces (plus more if anyone else wants). I wish I had interns.
If I line up the holes for the power header then the pins header is not aligned with holes. One is about half a row off from the other. So putting male pins on the bottom of a generic board has not worked for me.
An interim solution would be to use standard headers on one side, and 90-degree headers on the other. With some creative soldering on double-sided PCBs, you're in business and can space the offset any amount you need.
Erco:
Thanks for idea of using 90-degree pin strips which I could slide in-out to align with headers.
Alternately on the creative path, I have soldered onto proto board some leads w/male tips and plugged those into BOE headers. Works for now, but I can see leads will be tearing out of the prototype board and whole hack is not as easy/quick to use as a dedicated physical format.
I ordered three to try. Same size and 17x10 grid as used on the BoE/HW boards, in random colors. For a buck, it might make sense on some projects to just build "permanently" on these and throw them in a project box. But maybe not for mission critical, outdoor/humid/corrosive environments.
Some enterprising robot builder will use these breadboards as a chassis for a microbot. Double-stick-tape two micro CR servos and a LiPo battery on the bottom, and the top is your playground.
@Duane/Martin_H/Whit+/TommyT: Who will beat me to it?
Hello!
Cut to today. I have here a similar batch of five minis. The white one is the same as standing on my HWB, and as traveled with two tins of components from Maker Shed. And on the protoshield for the Ar**** and as on the shield for the thing.
As it happens all of them arrived with jumpers when I bought a bag full of them at the recent Maker Faire here in NYC, when I asked if any of our hosts would be there.
Oddly enough I did look at the Small Robotics page. And I'm impressed. No intentions of building it since no code was provided but okay.
Dang it, somebody stole my "breadboard as chassis" idea clear back in 1998, and even beat me to the clever name I was considering, "Breadbot". At least he used a Parallax processor, the venerable BS1!
Hello!
Oddly enough I'm planning a similar idea finally. Tamiya USA makes a so-called Universal Plate Set, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10016 that's from the SPF catalog, but its the same vendor, and also https://www.sparkfun.com/products/321 Tank Treads, upon examination, they look almost the same as the ones for the BOE Bot.
The powerplant for that whole business is one of the motor assemblies with gears that the same company makes and SPF also sells. But since Parallax advocates using these continuous rotation servos, that's what I'd be using instead. The really difficult part is the selection of either a BS1 or BS2 for the brains of the setup.
Yes I know I'm rebooting an already old thread on the subject of these boards.
Comments
Sounds easy so I bought several boards from the Shack and then Digi and others. But the BOE's two female headers (pins and power) are not exactly on the same 0.1 pitch grid. If I line up the holes for the power header then the pins header is not aligned with holes. One is about half a row off from the other. So putting male pins on the bottom of a generic board has not worked for me.
I don't have the skills to design a board with proper location of holes for headers strips. It would be great if someone knew how to measure that and put into a design file. I would send to a PCB fabricator and get 30 pieces (plus more if anyone else wants). I wish I had interns.
Not exactly, but you can easily hack one of the $1.38 power boards with the info at http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/149375-Strange-USB-Connector?p=1201843&viewfull=1#post1201843
An interim solution would be to use standard headers on one side, and 90-degree headers on the other. With some creative soldering on double-sided PCBs, you're in business and can space the offset any amount you need.
Thanks for idea of using 90-degree pin strips which I could slide in-out to align with headers.
Alternately on the creative path, I have soldered onto proto board some leads w/male tips and plugged those into BOE headers. Works for now, but I can see leads will be tearing out of the prototype board and whole hack is not as easy/quick to use as a dedicated physical format.
Hello!
Cut to today. I have here a similar batch of five minis. The white one is the same as standing on my HWB, and as traveled with two tins of components from Maker Shed. And on the protoshield for the Ar**** and as on the shield for the thing.
As it happens all of them arrived with jumpers when I bought a bag full of them at the recent Maker Faire here in NYC, when I asked if any of our hosts would be there.
Oddly enough I did look at the Small Robotics page. And I'm impressed. No intentions of building it since no code was provided but okay.
Hello!
Oddly enough I'm planning a similar idea finally. Tamiya USA makes a so-called Universal Plate Set, https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10016 that's from the SPF catalog, but its the same vendor, and also https://www.sparkfun.com/products/321 Tank Treads, upon examination, they look almost the same as the ones for the BOE Bot.
The powerplant for that whole business is one of the motor assemblies with gears that the same company makes and SPF also sells. But since Parallax advocates using these continuous rotation servos, that's what I'd be using instead. The really difficult part is the selection of either a BS1 or BS2 for the brains of the setup.
Yes I know I'm rebooting an already old thread on the subject of these boards.