Black Friday 4.0, shield, and pins... how to stack them together?

4aestral

Member
Hello, I bought the recent sale package with a 4.0, pins, and audio shield. I want to be able to use them with a breadboard while I develop my project, but I am unsure about the correct way to stack them together before soldering. The pics show my best guess, but will there be any noise or heat issues with them being so close together this way? Or should I buy some longer female stacking header pins?

IMG_1823.JPG
IMG_1822.JPG
 
The main issue is parts on the bottom side of Teensy 4.0 possibly touching the SD socket or other parts on the audio shield.

Once soldered, it's also pretty much impossible to separate them if you don't use the sockets between these 2 boards.
 
OK, what is the best way to stack these if we want to use a breadboard? I have found some longer female stacking pins on amazon, that I could use like this, (but with longer pins on the bottom of the stack).
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PJRC sells <pins> & <sockets> that mate & work very well together !!

I prefer to put the Audio Adapter on the bottom (with sockets soldered onto the top of the PCB), & the Teensy 4.x on the top (with pins soldered onto the bottom of the PCB). This allows easy access to the PROGRAM button on the T4.x, as well as allowing the T4.x to be used on a solderless breadboard for prototyping if/as necessary.

Mark J Culross
KD5RXT
 
That's what I have (pictured above). I think I just need to get longer female sockets to get it to work with the breadboard.
Sorry, I guess I read your post a little to quickly & missed the clearly stated desire to use the mated pair on a "breadboard".

Mark J Culross
KD5RXT
 
Carefully consider whether you want the teensy on top or the audio shield
Physical space is not an issue and I don't plan to use the sd card on the audio shield, so I figured it would be most convenient to have access to the button on top. Does that restrict me in what pins I have access to on the board in any way?
 
What I generally prefer is to use stacking headers. Adafruit sells 2 14-position stacking header + 1 5-position stacking header that is just right for the Teensy (or the Adafruit Itsy-Bitsy which uses the same 14-pin side pins + 5-pin rear layout as the Teensy 4.0). For breadboard and prototype usage, you would use the 2 14-position headers, and not use the 5-position header (or use the 5 position header, and cut off the extenders, to convert it to a normal 5 position female header). At the moment, Adafruit is sold out, but Digikey has some:
The nice thing with stacking headers is you can stack multiple boards.

Alternatively to the 14-position stacking headers, you can get longer stacking headers and use diagonal cutters to cut the header after the 14th pin. I generally first pull out the 15th pin, and then cut in the empty space. Then I use a rotary tool like a dremel to file it down. Every so often, I cut it too close to the last pin, and I have to throw out the header, and make another.
Note, Sparkfun sells a stacking header set for the Teensy 3.2/4.0, but it is not useful for the Audio shield. This is because the Sparkfun headers are 2 13-position headers plus 1 7-position header. Unfortunately, the 5 rear pins are not in the audio shield.

If you don't need to separate the Teensy and the Audio Adapter, you can get these pins from PJRC that allows you to solder the Teeny on the top, and the audio adapter underneath (or vice versa):
Or alternatively, get longer male pins, solder one board at the top, and the other in the middle, and you can put it in a breadboard or prototype board.

Here is a picture of a Teesy 3.1 with the old Prop Shield, both with stacking headers attached:
2018-12-05-01-05-005-electronics.jpg
 
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