SOICbite ISP board-connector thingy - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 05, 2020, 10:44:58 am
content: Hi,I just saw this and it looks amazing- a PCB footprint which can be placed on the edge of a board and mates with a cheapo soic8 test clip. Very space efficient and simple.https://github.com/SimonMerrett/SOICbiteHas anyone tried it? Any thoughts?

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 14, 2020, 08:45:56 pm
content: Hi, I made the footprint. It's not the most secure contact with the PCB but I put one on pretty much all my boards now.However, I'm clearly biased and this person has done a review recently, which might be useful to you.https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/11202/quick-soicbite-review-a-small-programming-connector

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 11:47:12 am
content: Thanks for making it!I've got some 1.0mm boards on order to test if this will work for my application. Hopefully it will work the same as thicker boards. I've bought a test-clip and I'm going to try it out.If this works ok, I'll use it on the next batch of my boards, as it will replace using pogo-pins on to through-hole pads, it's smaller and less fiddly.

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 12:37:04 pm
content: You're welcome!I hope you noted from the linked review that on thinner PCBs it is less reliable and you may need to cut more of your clip away to make contact. Also, you may (and this can apply to 1.6mm boards too) need to press the clip ends together if you haven't made your clip spring apply more force in the closed position. There's a link in the readme.md in the github repo thatshows the different areasthat may need to be trimmed on the clip.Also, for 1mm PCBs, you may want to consider removing the two outer "claws" on one "jaw"/side of the clip and the two inner "claws" on the other "jaw"/side. That way, if the claws would have met before the spring contacts had made contact with the PCB pads, they now won't, but you should still get the mating benefit of the "claws". Does that make sense?

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 02:45:56 pm
content: I only need 4 signals, not 8, so I've spaced them out among the pins and arranged them in a way which means nothing Bad happens if they short with the opposing pins. I'm also not 100% sure that this capacitor here, won't foul on the sioc clip,If needed I can adjust the springyness.

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 03:05:52 pm
content: QuoteClearance looks fine to me.QuoteVery sensible. One other consideration is to see if anything bad would happen if you placed it on the wrong way round. This is the reason the suggested pinouts (as a blank starting point) on the repo have VCC and GND on the same side of the PCB. If VCC was pin 1 and GND was pin 5, you could reverse feed the circuit with the clip flipped.

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 06:14:18 pm
content: No, it won't do anything Bad if connected in reverse, only half of the pads are connected and reversing it would mean that none do anything.Something bad could happen if it was both reversed *and* out of alignment, but hopefully that's unlikely.

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2020, 11:46:02 am
content: I can report that the Soicbite works ok with 1.0mm thick boards.I modified the soic clip as described in the doc. It's a bit loose with a 1.0mm board, I think it would be better with 1.6 (or higher) - but works ok with a small amount of pressure to seat the contacts.I've pulled the footprint slightly further from the edge of the board than recommended (about 0.5mm) but that's ok, and it allows me to run tracks between the soicbite and the edge of the board, see attached image.Anyway I'm pleased with it.

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 21, 2020, 07:28:00 pm
content: Great, glad it works for you - the variability in the clips can make it less of a certainty ( I have some which are no good for 1.0mm but fine for 1.6mm). I had my first pull request in a while on the repository last night, which I need to check out. Someone sensible has suggested a courtyard for the footprint so hopefully they've done that for us and hopefully it will help with DRC.

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 08:55:59 pm
content: Got my boards back from the assembler, and tested a couple - all working. Soicbite is very convenient!These are 1mm thick but it still works very well, this pcb house seems to have left a bit more solder on from hasl process.

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 09:46:07 pm
content: Brilliant - thanks for letting me/us know how it goes for you. As with so many things the variables might need to be just right for this to work but it seems fairly tolerant of different setups. May I enquire about the details of the board? What's the RF module? Can see there's an Atmel on there - guessing a new range of ATtiny 1 series? And the three ICs down the bottom? Left, Right and W? No offence intended if it's a private project and apologies if you have mentioned elsewhere and I haven't bothered to look!

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 09:51:18 pm
content: Nothing private about it, it's open source toohttps://github.com/MarkR42/malenki-nanoThe mcu is a attiny1617. The radio module is a a7105 module (various different part numbers, typically something like md7105-sy). The other chips are motor drivers, and it's a radio / speed controller for very small combat robots (think 150grams or less)

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2020, 10:36:56 pm
content: Well that was edifying - glad I asked, thanks! I see, W = weapon

author: MarkR42
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 06:47:04 am
content: Earlier versions of robot controllers contained the text "weapon", but this one is smaller and had no space.I'm also slightly worried about having custom electronics produced with the text "weapon" on the silk screen, in case it would be opened by customs and siezed on security grounds (I might never see it again, or worse, be arrested).

author: smerrett79
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2020, 11:20:37 am
content: Fair enough - no point risking it. Just say it's an amplifier - left, right and woofer!