On 10/22/2013 01:35 PM, Christopher Havel wrote:
It occurred to me, just now, that if the MEB (or any other EOMA-68 carrier board) is put in a housing with built-in guides for the CPU Card, then we don't necessarily need a proper PCMCIA slot -- just a 2x34 right-angle pin header with 1.27mm spacing. Have the bezel of the CPU card stick out just a touch from the housing, so that someone can get their fingernail (or a small slot screwdriver) under it and pry just enough so that they can yank it out.
There are instances in some of my ideas for custom enclosures where I'd like to have the EOMA-68 card vertical relative to the PCB. I have not yet found a PCMICA connector that does that. This would be a justifiably place to put in some guides and a pin header as you describe.
Last time I looked down this path I had only minimally encouraging results (limited to searching digikey). If I recall I found a 80pin header with the right spacing, but the pins were too short. If they had been longer, I could justify buying a few and cutting them down to size for one-offs.
Seems to me that it'd be a cheaper option as well, because of the wonders of injection-molded plastic... even making the housing out of something fairly sturdy, say 2mm ABS, surely wouldn't cost too terribly much... plus, it's potentially possible to 3d print such a thing, which would make this stuff even more accessible to the (far richer than me) hobbyist. (Of course it'd also be possible to 'jerry-rig' it with scrap materials and lots of fussing.)
Depending on the model of PCMICA socket your looking at, that can be all they are. I know the socket on MEBv1 would be close to fitting under this definition of injection-moulded plastic guide. It had the added benefit of being cheap and off the shelf and no need for an extra pin header.
http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/micro_engineering_board/
It's easy to consider custom options based on 'it will be good enough for me', but that logic doesn't fly with a product where you expect to sell more then any where from a dozen to a few thousand. When ordering that and larger quantity of parts it does become cost effective to ask for a custom part from a manufacturer of PCMICA connectors. That cost effectiveness is also including the weeding out of manufacturing defected parts!
Case in point, the blue 0.1" headers on the Netduino.
You can not go to digi-key and get hearers in any colour you like. But if you have the capital and a large enough _direct_ order, anything is possible, including a branding statement like blue pin headers.
This is a case where if there is enough of uses cases for wanting such a vertical header, we could pool resources for an order. But I don't see that happening until there is a regular production runs of EMOA-68 cards to justify it.
I'd love to see a housing like that, with a small carrier board (perhaps a VGA-enabled version of the MEB?) and a VESA 75mm mounting option. It would enjoy a permanent placement on the back of my spare LCD for sure. (The carrier board would definitely have to support VGA through some means, though, to work with that screen.)
I think I'm starting to ramble.