I need to bounce an idea off someone:
If I want to pass 10 signals along from board to board using ribbon cable & IDC connectors like below, and the pin assignment oriented the same on all boards,
can I just lay the cable flat and make sure the IDC connector is crimped on in the same orientation at both ends?
I want to make interconnect assembly as straightforward as possible.
Sure you can, as long as you orientate pin one on the mating connectors as you have in the picture. Further cost saving can be made in your 'pass on' boards by having just a single module connector and just allow the IDE cable to pass through via the ribbon connector cable. Such 'daisy chain' IDE cabling is quite common in many designs, if that makes sense?
Lefty
Thanks Lefty, just wanted to make sure before I ordered boards.
A High signal comes, drives a ULN2803 to drive LEDs, then goes out thru another ULN2803 to the next board as a High again, there will be string of 6 to 8 these boards and I want all to have the same intensity, that's the reason for the multiple connectors. Each board has pullups for the output of the previous board.
I suppose the output buffer/inverter could be a CD74AC540 and skip the pullups.
