GPIO Hat Connector

StereoPi hardware discussion
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skeptikos
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Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2019 4:54 pm

GPIO Hat Connector

Post by skeptikos »

The Wiki says "To preserve Pi hats compatibility (electrical and physical) we kept the original Raspberry Pi GPIOs but rotated them 180 degrees" and indeed the PCB GPIO connector pin markings confirm that the hat, rather than riding above the processor board as hats are normally wont to do, would need to hang off into space.

First off, I would like to triple-confirm that to be the case before frying anything.

Secondly, why in the world would you have decided to do that? It rules out using a hat such as the common 3.5" LCD hat (from AdaFruit, Seeed, etc.) in a compact-camera arrangement. I don't see any benefit in return.

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Realizator
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Re: GPIO Hat Connector

Post by Realizator »

Hi Skeptikos,
There are several reasons:
1. Big hats (like 3.5" screens you mentioned) has not enough space, as USB and Ethernet connectors will conflict with such a hats.
2. These hats also prevents from normal camera ribbons installation.
3. We suggest all such a hats will be installed on the opposite side of the StereoPi (where CM3 is sitting). For this case you may use flexible cable for connection. WIth such installation rotated GPIO also gives you a benefit, as with this hat orientation you can use short GPIO ribbon.

We've ordered several tiny Waveshare LCD hats to play with. I plan to describe our LCD hats experiments in our next articles.
Eugene a.k.a. Realizator

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