SteveD0 “nix the tag connect and use the standard 10-pin connector”.

I’m talking about V2 adjustments for the future. 🙂

SteveD0 To the second point, if I only need 4 connection, can I use 4 dupont cables to connect between the 4 header locations on the programming board and 4 stacking header locations on the nRF9160?

How are you stacking the boards? If you stack the nRF9160 Feather on top then you don’t have to worry about accessing it. Most Adafruit boards come unsoldered so you can add a female header instead of a male. Or, alternatively, use a doubler or tripler.

        Back to one of my questions earlier, is there an issue stacking (or connecting via a doubler, etc.) two MCUs as the Rx and Tx are connected to the same and not reversed to each other?

          SteveD0 There you go! The more the merrier. Remember as you start using these boards you need to make sure other signals play nicely with each other. I’ve been working with a Particle Xenon + nRF9160 Feather an I had to cut the battery trace between the two. The battery chargers were not happy with each other. 😇

              2 months later

              jaredwolff I checked out V2 looks like the tag connector is still there and V3 appears to be tag. Just another $60 tool, still better than the $300 molex crimp tool!

                  K2AAE Yea exactly. If you’re nice to it, it lasts a good while. Pays for itself for big projects in no time. 😀

                      8 days later

                      Personally I have come to like the TagConnect, yeah its an investment to get one, but I am seeing more and more boards that use the TagConnect. To name a few, Nordic dev baords, Texas Instruments boards, etc. It saves board space and BOM cost on pins/connectors.

                      I am starting to use TagConnect on boards at work, see how the other people at work react to it, I really didn’t ask before I had the boards made. Not leaving my personal cable at the office to disappear, they will have to get some for the office.

                      If you do buy one, get both a 10 pin and 6 pin version, with all the pins wired straight through (with the larger 0.1″ connectors). You can make adapter boards to route the pins as you need for different uses.

                      Suggestion, the pin numbers on the silk don’t match the GPIO numbers on the nRF9160, was there a reason for this? I guess does not really matter if you got a schematic to check the pin connections, was this to match the pin numbers on the Adafruit Feather platform?

                        aldras exactly. The idea being its showing which pins can be use for what purpose. You can use the pins by their names in the DTS but I haven’t had a chance to create an example based on it.

                            jaredwolff
                            Ah, thanks. Next time I recompile the project I will try this out, I was not sure I could use the pins by their names.

                                a month later

                                I was going to add pins to the feather but I found the TC2030 holder on the bottom will not fit if I add male pin headers, I think that is the standard feather header. I looked at adding extended female headers but then https://www.adafruit.com/product/4777 wouldn’t plug in without adding https://www.adafruit.com/product/400
                                I’m thinking https://www.adafruit.com/product/400 in the bottom with spacers holding them off the PCB allowing the TC2030 holder to still fit then trim the excess pins off or just leave them..
                                Any ideas?

                                  K2AAE well, if you don’t mind modifying your board, you can always solder wires to the SWD test points on the bottom of the board an run them out. Using the Tag Connect with anything plugged together will be tough.

                                      6 days later

                                      rbrtwtrs I have been going back and forth on this. It’s rough to add on this design. Did it with another one that’s coming out and there was enough room. 😀

                                          I can see that staying inside the bounds of the feather form factor definately limits how much you can pack on there and you certainly packed it in there. 10lbs of sausage in a 5lb casing.

                                            rbrtwtrs Haha yea… guilty as charged. Some things could move to the bottom but it’s problematic without going to 6 layer.

                                            I do realize though that some folks don’t have TC cables and that was a bummer from a debugging perspective. Most folks can do most through the usage of the bootloader. I find myself using newtmgr more often than searching for my nRF9160 DK and TC cable to program.

                                                6 days later

                                                jaredwolff V4? Move the Battery connector and USB to the bottom, SIM card to the rear, move the TC center behind the USB and the devices currently there to where the USB and Battery connectors were? Don’t go for the 5X2@1.27 it is just to big.
                                                I did discover that the CP2102 isn’t around right now, the CP2105 is and the PCF85263 has more for $0.10, micros-seconds and stop watch plus battery backup support. Last the 32Khz Crystal isn’t around, I found a 5ppm, 50-ECX-.327-CDX-2096CT-ND for around the same price.
                                                I noticed you have stock again, I was going to order another board after killing mine, you were OOS, good thing, I discovered I’d put the wrong Hologram SIM back in after my Verizon SIM disaster… The AT+CESQ doesn’t seem to work unless your SIM and Device are registered… ::


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