This board was developed for use in my Direct UV Printer, but may be useful to other projects. It consists of x3 Texas Instruments TXS0108E voltage level converters for 5V signalling and full size USB-A for WIFI dongle etc.
Flexible Flat Cable (FFC) version;
- 14 i/o lines including the serial RX TX, broken out to a 24pin x 1mm FFC connector.
- SPI lines broken out to one 1x4 0.1" header
- 4 i/o lines broken out to 1x4 0.1" header
- 2 i/o lines broken out to 1x2 0.1" header
- 0.1" +ve/-ve header for power into FFC connector
0.1" header version;
- 16 lines to 2x8 0.1" header
- SPI lines & 4 I/O lines broken out to a second 2x4 0.1" header.
Both cards include an EEPROM following the Raspberry Pi HAT conventions to allow specification of the pin INPUT / OUTPUT configuration. And the single USB socket broken out to a full size powered USB-A socket via POGO pins.
Some working notes regarding using bcm2835 for SPI control, as the CE1 line is used as an I/O line the following lines need to be commented out to prevent it being taken out of service;
File bcm2835.h; line 329 => //BCM2835_SPI_CS1 = 1, ///< Chip Select 1 line 330 => //BCM2835_SPI_CS2 = 2, ///< Chip Select 2 (ie pins CS1 and CS2 are asserted)
File bcm2835.c; line 330 => //bcm2835_gpio_fsel(RPI_GPIO_P1_26, BCM2835_GPIO_FSEL_ALT0); // CE1 line 347 => //bcm2835_gpio_fsel(RPI_GPIO_P1_26, BCM2835_GPIO_FSEL_INPT); // CE1
I'll add instructions when this has been tested fully. There may be a more elegant way of implementing this.
I need to check and see if the option to setup with (BCM2835_SPI_CS_NONE) and then call CS manually in the code would be an alternative.
I've re-jigged the board to suit 0.1" header pins, this should make it more useful for a variety of projects. Files and schematic will be added to the files section.
I've uploaded version v3.0 of the board which has the headers moved to prevent clash with the micro USB connector on the Pi. I have also added a PolyZen over voltage protection diode to the 5V inlet to add a degree of over voltage protection.
Before I killed the Pi, the wifi adaptor plugged directly into the v2.0 board was working happily through the pogo pin connection to the header pads on the Pi.
well I've recieved the v2 boards from OSH and everything looks good. I've noticed one irritating issue, which is the micro USB ports on the zero stick out slightly, and clash with one of my headers, but is fine if run as a 90deg header under the board.
The other issue was when I accidentally contacted my 5V converter against the shielding on a ribbon cable and fried (connected to 12V) the zero and I assume the level converters - oops. So I want to add some voltage protection in the form of a voltage protection diode.
So I will make some adjustments and upload the finalised version.
I considered doing that too, it's super annoying that they don't break out the USB data lines. It would take, like, no extra effort and increase hackability by a huge amount
I've had any issues with them, and its not like they are being load cycled. As long as you are in the mid range of the displacement then there should not be any long term changes. I imagine if you compressed them to the limit then issues may arrise.
David, have you got details of the PogoPins you used please ?