Using pin-headers to directly attach boards together?

[m00dawg]

I came up with an idea to use an intermediate board of sorts between the MB-6582 and my custom control surface to make wiring the control surface easier and avoid an ugly mess of cabling. This allows me to be able to make at least some of the boards myself since a few of them are single-layer or only have a few extra traces on a 2-layer (which I can just use wires for if making my own). I can also make the control surface more modular.

Basically, each module has SIL headers that then all go into this CS board. From there, I route all the wires to match the pin-headers on the MB-6582 itself. Originally I was going to use regular ribbon cable (with pin headers) to connect the MB-6582 and the CS board. The thought crossed me mind, however, that it might be easier to wire, and more space efficient to simply connect the CS Board directly to the MB-6582 by using pin-headers, in similar fashion to the Sammich designs.

The question is, since those are SIL headers, I was wondering how stable that might be without using another support mechanism? I was wanting to put the board as far forward (up towards the PICs) as I could before running into the SIDs (and leaving some room for the heatsinks and some air circulation) or at least put it so that the headers are centered to the board to sort of balance it. Anything I might need to be aware of? I was worried that this might cause some wiggle and would stress the solder joints, though that might only be an issue while moving the synth around (and it will be rackmount so I don't plan on doing that often). I'm not sure how many people have tried doing such things (other than Wilba and nILS with the Sammich designs) but thought I would ask to see if I am going down the right path :)

[ilmenator]

"Stacking" boards is very common practice, just google for "Arduino Shield" and you will find millions of add-on boards meant to be stacked on top of little microcontroller boards. I guess you are talking about having the control surface board and the base board at a 90 degrees angle to each other, using angled headers then?

[m00dawg]

Ah yeah I forgot about the Arduino shields! Looks like many of them are secure by multiple pin headers to help provide rigidity? My problem is that the only pin headers I would use are the front headers on the MB-6582 and those are single row. So I was worried about stress caused by the top board only being secured via the single row headers alone.

[ilmenator]

Oh, I see. You don't want to do it that way, then. It might be okay for a prototype setup to test things, but I would definitely not recommend this as a final solution. Also, your board will then be probably rather large, which creates some extra leverage.

But, maybe you could use the SIL headers on the base PCB (those north and south of the PICs) just for mechanical stabilization, like a sort of "blind" headers?

[m00dawg]

Ooooh that's a very good idea! I'll have to play around with that once I finish the rest of the CS boards, thanks for the idea!

[julienvoirin]

Best Arduino shields (like Ethernet) can by strongly fixed to the Arduino by 1, 2 or 3 Spacers (height=12mm), as there are holes in regards on both boards

the assembly is SUPER strong, like SammichSID

[m00dawg]

Yeah I think I'll shoot for that and see how things go. I'll likely put the MB-6582 headers towards the center of the board, which means I'll have some overhang should I need even more support and need to mount it to the case itself. Thanks for the thoughts everyone!