1

I don't know if it is a good idea to ask these questions here but,

I am planning to design more than one pcb's which sizes and pinouts are the same with rapsberry pi 3 and connect them all together. For example pcb1 will use 3 pins on pi, and pcb2 will use other 2 pins on pi. pcb 1 is on top of the pi, think that pi's i/o pins are long enough, and pcb2 will be on the pcb1 and so on.

It will be something like that http://www.harrowalsh.de/Elektronik/APPLEBOX/Gameport/web/16GameportIOPiggypack_plugedinLeftside.jpg

My questions are,

1) is it a good idea to do that? what is your recommendations?

2) i will change the raspberry pi gpio pins with the long ones. but which connector can i use in the other pcb's?

3) do you have an another idea to connect 2-3-4 small pcb modules to pi? think that these pcb modules are selectable for users. In one design, user can use pcb2&pcb3 and pcb2&pcb4 in another design.

Ömer Kazım Zora
  • 13
  • 1
  • 3

1 Answers1

2

What you are referring to is called "Stacking". Provided that your board pins do not interfere with each other and/or you provide addressable boards (e.g. SPI or I2C), you're okay stacking them.

And NO, you do NOT replace your Pi's GPIO headers with freakishly long ones. See below:

  1. It's not a bad idea. It's supported by some boards.
  2. Don't do that. The usual solution is to use a stacking header. Do the same to PCB 2 to allow another PCB to go on top of it.
  3. See answer #2. It also depends on how you make your boards, but I think an addressable solution will be better (if not the only way).

Click on the image to zoom in. enter image description here

Picture is from this link. You can read through it: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-16-channel-pwm-servo-hat-for-raspberry-pi/stacking-hats

Aloha
  • 7,176
  • 1
  • 29
  • 52