I added an SX1509 16-Port GPIO Expander Chip which routes to two 2x8 0.1" headers (under the Core) on the front and back of the board.
#Diptrace library right angle header trial#
So anyway, let me know what you think, if enough people are interested I’ll personally hand-build a trial run of them (between 25 and 100 units to make it worth my time, if there’s more demand I can take it to Seeed or something).Įxpanding on my idea of adding an I2C based GPIO Expander, I modified the form factor a bit, making it thinner (0.9" wide down from 1.1") by removing the outer row of 0.1" holes.
Other possible additions could include: Level Shifting for SPI and/or UART, a high resolution ADC or DAC (or both), 16-port GPIO expander routed to the outside row of pins (the SX1509 is pretty cool, it can do keypad scanning, PWM output, LED driving with fade and blink support and basic digitalRead/digitalWrite) and anything else you guys think would be handy.
(I.e., if you unplug the USB it’ll instantly switch to the battery, just like a UPS.) Power is switched seamlessly between the battery and input with no loss in power to the Core and attached devices. If you’ve got a battery hooked up and USB plugged in at the same time, it’ll default to the USB/VIN. The 3.7V LiPo will go through a high-efficiency Buck/Boost converter to provide a steady to the core and any accessories you may have hooked up. I’ll most likely have the Fuel Gauge/I2C Pull-ups going through a pair of 0-Ohm resistors that the user can desolder if they don’t want their D0/D1 lines tied up by I2C. Charge/Discharge status could also be displayed on a little “bar graph” of five SMD LEDs (the chip supports this, I could even add the footprint and let users solder it on themselves if the majority don’t need it/want the added cost). I’ve got onboard I2C pull-ups (which the Core needs anyway) because there’s a fancy little LiPo Fuel Gauge chip that will report battery status to the Core over I2C. (That’s right, this Battery Shield doesn’t have its own separate USB connector.) Charging power simply comes from the VIN pin of the Core, so if you want to use this in an embedded solution, you just need to supply 5V to that pin for charging. To charge, you simply feed the Core power like you normally would, through the built-in USB port. Usage is pretty simple, you just plug a LiPo battery into the 4-pin connector and you’re battery powered. As you can see, the entire board isn’t much bigger than the Core itself and I still have plenty of room on the top and an entire bare underside for additional functionality so if you have ideas for other things you’d like to see let me know!īasically, the Core plugs into the female headers there’s a row of 0.1" spaced plated-throughholes on both sides of each header that would allow you to-for example-add male headers on the bottom inside rows to retain “passthrough” connectivity to a breadboard while leaving the outside rows either unpopulated or adding male/female headers there as well for debugging or other uses. The main white outline on the board is the Core’s form factor, with the solid white block being the location and size of the Core’s Micro-USB port. Luckily, I have some experience with LiPo charging and power solutions! Would anyone be interested in a Battery Shield in a 1.5x1.1" form factor? Here’s what I’ve got so far:
I’ve noticed a lot of-shall we call it distaste-regarding the current Spark Battery Shie-Mustachio.
#Diptrace library right angle header code#
Since it’s been hard to work on code with my fingers being fubar, I decided to do some EDA tonight during the big game!
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