Looks like OP and Paul agreed on the conclusion of this thread. That's good, but before we part I'd like to propose a little experiment. Just ask yourself these three simple questions:
1. How many projects have you done with Teensy where there was absolutely no way to fit anything bigger? Let's say longer by .7" for simplicity.
Note that if your project had any kind of breakout board or custom carrier then you cannot count it in, since you had to accommodate that extra size anyway.
2. How many projects required an access to additional signals on the bottom?
3. How many connections from Teensy to external devices do you usually make that do not require at least ground wire?
Again, if your custom board provides ground/power to external connections outside of Teensy those signals do not count.
Of course I am talking about final projects here, not breadboarding/prototyping phase. Somehow I believe even the biggest proponents of the smaller form factor will be surprised by their own answers
For the reference, my numbers (note that I am using ATxmega-based controller similar to Teensy by layout/connectivity) are:
- 14 fully functioning commercial projects;
- all but 1 of them used carrier boards about nine times bigger than the controller, so the answer to #1 would be 1 out of 14 (had to fit slave controller into steering wheel);
- 5 projects needed MCU pins not directly routed outside. In 2 projects even that was not enough and I had to go with multi-controller setup. So #2 is 7 out of 14;
- finally, all external connections used 3-pin headers. However if I subtract clock lines of I2C/SPI and Rx lines of USART then the number would be something like 95% (of connections requiring power rails along with signal).
1. How many projects have you done with Teensy where there was absolutely no way to fit anything bigger? Let's say longer by .7" for simplicity.
Note that if your project had any kind of breakout board or custom carrier then you cannot count it in, since you had to accommodate that extra size anyway.
2. How many projects required an access to additional signals on the bottom?
3. How many connections from Teensy to external devices do you usually make that do not require at least ground wire?
Again, if your custom board provides ground/power to external connections outside of Teensy those signals do not count.
Of course I am talking about final projects here, not breadboarding/prototyping phase. Somehow I believe even the biggest proponents of the smaller form factor will be surprised by their own answers
For the reference, my numbers (note that I am using ATxmega-based controller similar to Teensy by layout/connectivity) are:
- 14 fully functioning commercial projects;
- all but 1 of them used carrier boards about nine times bigger than the controller, so the answer to #1 would be 1 out of 14 (had to fit slave controller into steering wheel);
- 5 projects needed MCU pins not directly routed outside. In 2 projects even that was not enough and I had to go with multi-controller setup. So #2 is 7 out of 14;
- finally, all external connections used 3-pin headers. However if I subtract clock lines of I2C/SPI and Rx lines of USART then the number would be something like 95% (of connections requiring power rails along with signal).
