"Historical reasons".uze6666 wrote:Just wondering, why do you have those tall plastic headers instead of, say, low profile ones? Or even, why not just solder the AVCore right on the board? For sure we could not "upgrade" then...
I used to sell a lot of little DIP-module things (replacements for ASICs in old arcade games) and I used machined-pin headers. They were nice because you could get low profile sockets and even turned-pin sockets that mount *in* the PCB (so essentially no stack-up height). The problem is that those turned pins are pretty brittle and novices had a tendency to break them off (pry up on one end of the module and snap off the ones on the other side). A real bear to try to fix that short of replacing those pins entirely. The through-hole SIP headers are relatively indestructable, but they do have a kinda long seating depth. I just selected headers that they could fully fit in and that I could use standard keying posts to keep them from going in incorrectly. Originally I had other circuitry *under* the AVCore which was kinda handy-- zero additional footprint. I took it off this rev to get the costs lower for our reseller...You could certainly solder it down to a PCB as well and just trim the leads. Then you only have about 0.1" mounting height on the 'botton' of the module. (That's set by the standoffs on the SIP headers-- which is convenient since it's just slightly taller than the tallest component on the board.)
I figured that people would probably want socketed more often than not if they're buying the module though. Lets you just swap modules when the '1284 comes out (or even a different MCU entirely if we ever want to do Xmega or even ARM), and you could have one AVCore with multiple baseboards if you like. (ie, use the GameCard for software/messing around, use the "experimenter" to prototype stuff, do your own as wire-wrap or stripline and just move the AVCore over, etc...)
Yeah, I can certainly see a bundle with quite literally "everything". Just need to write a book to go with it!Bundling an AVRISP in the kit could by nice, but as you said, most will already have some programmers. The others will indeed buy it from online stores that will most probably sell programmers as well. Hmmm...still, what about a "Deluxe" kit then? hehehe, endless possibilities...
-Clay
