www.coridium.us/forum

I have a SuperPro board with a custom shield board for my application interface. I would like to stack another board on top. This would be a display and/or communication board.
Are there stacking headers available?
Where can I find a source for Arduino shields?

adafruit is a good place. - they have the tall stacking headers, bare shields, interface chips (3.3 to 5+)
I've got several and am trying to make an LCD/keypad for a ProStart. - oldschool - non-I2C.
have you had much success with I2C??
Gary

I built a shield board with a USB Mini-b connector. It uses the 5 Volt & ground connections from the Coridium SuperPro board. Then I connect my I2C pins P1-26, & P1-29 to the USB Data+ & Data-. I connect the pin P0-11 to the USB Mini-b ID pin, pulled up with a 2.2 K Ohm resistor.

I plug it into my SuperPro using only 2 headers, the Power & Ground header & the P0-30 through P0-11 connector. Everything looks good, but I can't connect to the SuperPro with the Terminal program, and it appears that my code doesn't run with the home-made shield connected.

I used a 0.1" spaced matrix board and cut traces for my circuits. I might have missed disconnecting a pin from the matrix.

Are you trying to use the 1756 USB function? If so you will need a bunch of software support for that. It is not something we have done, but a start would be code from lpcopen.

No, I am not using the 1756 USB Function. I am trying to interface my Addafruit Alphanumeric Display by using USB Mini-b connectors & cable. My aim is to remote the display from the controller.

I think that I have fixed all my wiring problems. I can download & run my program, but the Display doesn't work. The display worked when I connected it with jumpers to the SuperPro board. I'm using the same pins, but running them to the Shield board & the USB connector. I then connect the USB cable to another Mini-b connector on my display board. The Addafruit display is mounted on that board. I get 4.95 Volts on the display at the VCC, SDA, & SCL pins P1.26 & P1.29 respectively. I have P0.11 pulled to 5 Volts. I plan to use that for a logical switch input.

Are USB cables wired 1:1? I did check with an Ohmeter to see that I have SDA, & SCL connected from the display to the shield.

Just as an aside having to do with sources:

Lady Ada has quite a number of great toys. Some of them are "more engineered" than I prefer, because I'm a low-level component fellow at heart.

For smaller, more basic stuff, you cannot beat SparkFun for great breakout boards. Unless you want to order from DigiKey and etch your own boards, they're about the handiest source for such.

When you need an 'exotic'... some special (you name it) chip on a carrier that you can introduce into your design, then you need (Really NEED) ProtoAdvantage.com. They'll custom-mount any chip you want to name on hundreds of different footprints for just tiny change above the price of the chip. They'll even order the chip (same-day) from Digikey, and ship in 24 hours!

They're a Canadian company, just across the lake from Thief River Falls, MN where one major Digikey distro is located, and they provide a superior, fast service.

LLoyd

For this project, I had a PC board made by Sunstone Circuits. Then I had some SMT ICs placed & reflowed by Proto-Advantage. The core of this device is working, but I am trying to add a Remote Display. I can connect the Addafruit Alphanumeric Display to the Coridium SuperPro controller by using jumpers for 5 Volt VCC, Ground, SDA, & SCL. It's the remote unit that I can't get working. I couldn't find a suitable Arduino compatible prototype board, that will allow me to mount the display & a USB Mini-b connector.

I could make another PC board from Sunstone Circuits, but the initial cost is high. I need to be sure that everything works before I do that.

Schematics and a layout would help us make intelligent comments.

I'll second that.
Occasionally, even for deliverable products that are "one-offs", it's acceptable to mount small carriers on perf-board, then do some (properly wrapped and soldered) point-to-point wiring.

As I mentioned earlier, SparkFun carries a lot of the common ones on small carriers conducive to being mounted via through-pins or sockets onto pad-per-hole perf-board. For more exotic chips, contact ProtoAdvantage.com

Lloyd

This is a proposed layout for a USB Mini-b board. It accepts a USB Mini-b breakout, and also an Adafruit Alphanumeric Display. This board serves 2 functions.
First, it interfaces the I2C SDA & SCL from P1.26 & P1.29. It also supplies 5 Volts & Ground to the USB port. The 5th pin on the USB Mini-b connection I plan to use to Input a logical switch to the SuperPro board.

Second, It connects SDA & SCL, 5 Volts & Ground to the Adafruit display.

I would use 2 of these boards per system. One is the I2C driver, & the other the I2C receiver.

If I can find a footprint for a USB Mini-b, I could make it accept the USB Mini-b connector directly, instead of using the breakout.