How to mount & connect a nRF52840 Dongle

Projekty i technologia Technikalia Ogólnie 💻
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I got some nRF52840 dongles a couple of weeks ago, and am busy making them into a matter device for a light strip (actually, all that seems to be working, but that’s another post).

The Dongle has these kind of half-THT contacts for its pins. You can solder header pins into them (to use in breadboard or solder to prototyping board), and you can also solder the whole board as an SMD, directly onto your prototyping board.

I don’t see any problem with doing either, but for now (until I’m sure I have the whole thing working as I want it), I don’t want to solder it in place yet (mostly since I would need to disconnect at least the +5V every time I want to plug it into a USB port to update the code).

I was wondering if someone knows of a clamp, or clips, or something that can be used to make temporary connections on this kind of boards? I have a plan to just solder some headers into a prototyping board, and then I could kind of “squeeze” the board in between; I feel that those connections will be good enough (only very-low-amps power, and 10MHz spi signals).

nRF52840-Dongle-rev2-prod_page.webp
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Reactions: :thinking: ×1 (DoomHammer)

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I was thinking something similar but for RPi Pico. There you have holes, though, so something akin to banana plugs should work , you pusz it through the holes and then it expands. No such luck here, but maybe there’s a solution for both our problems :slightly_smiling_face:

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I guess if you put some tension on the header pins so that they push inside, it should work… are the RPi-co holes coper-plated on the inside?

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not yet sure about that, but I have some clue: Search - Pimoroni

Reactions: :heart_eyes: ×1 (Claude)

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maybe this and something like a clamp could work for you?

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Wouldn’t work for me though I’m afraid…

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:hammer: :red_question_mark:

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If you’re afraid your soldering will damage you RPI, why not use a hammer!

Reactions: :rofl: ×1 (DoomHammer)

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what about this solution: Piny pogo i akcesoria montażowe - do nakładek HAT i Raspberry Pi Zero / Zero W - PiMoroni PIM330 Sklep Botland ?

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might be the same, might be something different, not sure

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Hmmm, nice! Worth considering!

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For now I soldered on some headers. But only last week (sometime’s I’m very slow) I understood @minions solution (the official name for this is PCB Edge Connectors). Although it seems they need more travel inside.

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https://pl.aliexpress.com/item/1005005688755687.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.47c15169kRCOTK&algo_pvid=695168ff-7982-4c51-ab00-10e8de410f56&algo_exp_id=695168ff-7982-4c51-ab00-10e8de410f56-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis!PLN!50.69!50.68!!!82.61!!%40211b88ef16962576796607596ed0db!12000034016297283!sea!PL!0!AB&curPageLogUid=2c9tS0WHfwBB ?

Reactions: :sweat_smile: ×1 (Claude)

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Those “half tht” ones usually work fine just pushed onto normal pins soldered to a board if they are put down straight enough. That’s how some peeps at my uni were making project with some atmega/arduino offbrand board so they can resell it as “basically new” right after passing

Reactions: :+1: ×1 (Claude)

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:peepocoffee: