Forgive my electrical engineering ignorance. I'm still stumbling my way through a personal project.
Let's say I have a set of 10 PCBs, each with a 328 Microcontroller and a few other peripherals. Let's say I wanted an easy way to connect them all so they could communicate with each other temporarily without the use of wireless communication.
Obviously, I could have a set of pin headers on each PCB and connect them all to each other with jumpers. Not very sexy. I could also solder pin headers AND pins to each PCB, then stack them. That's a little better. But, is there another way I haven't thought of to do this? Any tricks of the trade I'm not aware of?
aarg:
By temporarily, you mean once or only a few times? Is this some kind of device programmer or test fixture? How many insert/remove cycles?
Sorry, to be more specific, the devices would need to connect to each other at the beginning of each game (the project is a game, each PCB represents a piece of the game). But, after they've communicated once, they wouldn't have to communicate again until the player wanted to start over.
elveax:
Sorry, to be more specific, the devices would need to connect to each other at the beginning of each game (the project is a game, each PCB represents a piece of the game). But, after they've communicated once, they wouldn't have to communicate again until the player wanted to start over.
Pure speculation, and I'd have to spend days reading/tinkering to implement but, possibly one of the serial protocols, I2C or SPI? I'm guessing you could daisy chain the Arduinos with short cables for the setup sequence.
elveax:
Sorry, to be more specific, the devices would need to connect to each other at the beginning of each game (the project is a game, each PCB represents a piece of the game). But, after they've communicated once, they wouldn't have to communicate again until the player wanted to start over.
Which potentially could be thousands of times over the lifespan of the game, and done by people who are not as careful with the boards as you are.
Why is wireless out? Some short range wireless communication sounds like a good alternative to me. Saves lots of breakage risk.
One key parameter is how long a time do they need to be plugged into the socket?
Lets eliminate some type of connections. Any locking mechanism is out. Will be destroyed by trying to unlock. Any bare pins and sockets are out, will be destroyed by misalignment. Something similar to RJ-45 plug/socket will work as the connection is a sliding of one spring metal against the other, except it has a locking mechanism.
I have seen plugs/sockets on Tektronics plug in modules that fit your need. They had various pin counts. Perhaps it's time to search electronic distributor catalogs.
While taking a break from lawn mowing, I had other thoughts on the Tek plug in connectors that you will HAVE to emulate. They had two pointed locator pins that grounded the plus in before any electrical connections were made. You will have to do something similar to control the static electricity charge each person will generate as the move around.
You also need to ensure the unit ground is connected to the panel BEFORE the + power is applied.
