making pwm pins together

so i thought about a project i am working on, and i had, what i would think to be a pretty good idea.
I thought, that maybe the pwm pins that can make led's bright diffrent brightness's should be put all together. Maybe right after rx and tx pins 0 and 1, you should make it pwm 1, through 6 right there together. I know this will need to change the pcb as well as the software bootloader, but i think in the long run it might be helpfull.

please share your thoughts

There is a large base of users out there. It would take a really really really good reason to change the pinout.

There is a large base of users out there. It would take a really really really good reason to change the pinout.

How about to fix the spacing on the pins to sit on a .1" grid? That's a really really really good reason imo.

I don't really see much advantage to having all the PWM lines together, except maybe being easier to remember which pins are PWM.

The current layout arranges the pins sequentially by I/O port. Rearranging this would seem highly illogical and parallel interfaced devices such as LCDs would be greatly inconvenienced if the pin order was scrambled.

But I find it hard to imagine that anyone is happy with the odd pin spacing between pins 7 and 8. I would certainly choose a board with proper .1 spacing for any of my future purchases if it were available.

But I find it hard to imagine that anyone is happy with the odd pin spacing between pins 7 and 8. I would certainly choose a board with proper .1 spacing for any of my future purchases if it were available.

We should start a petition against the half pin spacing. I've just seen a tutorial somewhere on how to make your own arduino shield.. starting with drillingin-between holes on perf-board :-?

I put it on the Bugs+Suggestions voting page on the playground, but am afraid that it will get lost there.
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/SuggestionsBugs

//kuk

ps: concerning the original topic of this thread i would second what others wrote and add that routing the I/Os could be very difficult. without trying i'd guess that this would be the end to single-sided DIY boards.

We should start a petition against the half pin spacing. I've just seen a tutorial somewhere on how to make your own arduino shield.. starting with drillingin-between holes on perf-board :-?

Not to steal the thread, but is this really something people would like? A Diecimila clone with the second digital header on 0.100" centers? Seems to me like this should be an easy enough modification to any of the Freeduino clones. If, lets say, 8 people PM me and express their interest, I'll make one.

Hi,

Not to steal the thread, but is this really something people would like?

Ohhhhhh yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But I'd rather see that the next revision of the Arduino standard edition (read NG ->Dicemilla->Whatever is next) would implement this feature (fix this bug?)

Eberhard

Hi,

I put it on the Bugs+Suggestions voting page on the playground, but am afraid that it will get lost there.
Arduino Playground - SuggestionsBugs

What a temptation:
I typed a '3' for the new count of votes and thought
"if I simply forget to delete the old count of '2' we would be numero uno on the list with 32 votes..."

Eberhard

Not to steal the thread, but is this really something people would like? A Diecimila clone with the second digital header on 0.100" centers? Seems to me like this should be an easy enough modification to any of the Freeduino clones. If, lets say, 8 people PM me and express their interest, I'll make one.

Fortunately most freeduino variants i know are breadboard versions. No chance for whatever odd spacings there.

I don't think the problem is creating a 0.1'' freeduino alternative. The official boards still are and should be the standard in my opinion. now, if i were to produce or release the files for a shield design i'd have to decide whether i want to make it "arduino compatible" or not by making it DIY-friendly.

i got the negative impression that the "spacing bug" has been built-in to bind users and sell 3rd-party-licenses or genuine add-ons.
i'm not into the name licensing discussion, nor do i want to discredit the arduino business plan. It's just that i'd like to have an open standard. And i want to be able to use standard prototyping boards without having my shields look like i can't solder.

|||||||| //////// >:(

Fortunately most freeduino variants i know are breadboard versions. No chance for whatever odd spacings there.

I don't think the problem is creating a 0.1'' freeduino alternative. The official boards still are and should be the standard in my opinion. now, if i were to produce or release the files for a shield design i'd have to decide whether i want to make it "arduino compatible" or not by making it DIY-friendly.

Unfortunately that's not the case. I have three different Freeduino variants and they all have the .05 spacing. Perhaps the Arduino team needs to set a good example and make the 0.05 inch step to better breadboarding. As you say, the official boards set the standard.

The spacing on the boards was a mistake. It was like that (I believe) before the shields even existed, and we've regretted it since, but each time didn't want to break compatibility. We don't even make / sell that many shields, and, anyway, a standard spacing would have made it easier to develop new shields, so it probably would have been better off from a business point of view. In any case, it wasn't intentional.

The spacing on the boards was a mistake. It was like that (I believe) before the shields even existed, and we've regretted it since, but each time didn't want to break compatibility. We don't even make / sell that many shields, and, anyway, a standard spacing would have made it easier to develop new shields, so it probably would have been better off from a business point of view. In any case, it wasn't intentional.

The Arduino team got so many decisions right that I am sure we won't begrudge you this one mistake. And its never too late to improve things, If your not selling many of the old shields perhaps it wont be difficult to switch to new ones evenly spaced :wink:

The Arduino team got so many decisions right that I am sure we won't begrudge you this one mistake. And its never too late to improve things, If your not selling many of the old shields perhaps it wont be difficult to switch to new ones evenly spaced :wink:

I agree, I wouldn't be too hard on them for this one mistake. I probably wouldn't buy a freeduino with it fixed simply because if it's not an official standard anyway, I'm better off with an iDuino and a breadboard.

But I'd like to see the official boards switch to a standard spacing. In computing, backwards compatilibity is good, but every once in a while you need to throw away legacy support. Otherwise we'd still have 8" floppies and ISA slots.

The way they'd fix it in mainstream computing is with an adaptor. Have the new Arduinos on 0.1" spacing, and an optional adaptor to plug in older shields.

I made that mistake, when I made the first arduino board.

David Cuartielles took my first rectangular design , fixed a mistake (his first contribution) by applying the flying resistor you see.


and turned it into this

when I put some finishing touches I managed to get the spacing wrong...

We had 5 minutes before the deadline to go into production, the PCB guy was on the phone saying "send it now or it goes to next week" and we didn't have a name yet... they I said let's call it Arduino like a bar we used to go...there wasn't much time to think.

Then I'm fond of the mistake... it makes it not perfect therefore more human... Yes...it could have been all perfectly optimised... but if engineers ran the world it would be an unbearable place where to live :slight_smile:

Massimo

PS

for the ones who are into history , this is arduino prototype 0

PS

for the ones who are into history , this is arduino prototype 0

beautiful.
if you are ever to release a retro-arduino looking like that i want one. :slight_smile:

thank you for explaining how this spacing thing happened. and sorry for my little rant. But still i think this is a real bug, which makes me angry on a regular base. please think of the future. 10.000+ boards are enough in my opinion.

as for the remaining shields in stock i propose something like that:
||||||||\\\\\ :wink:

lol glad i got a conversation going