Best way to get aa teensy (3.2) in a low height enclosure?

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AlainD

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Hi

I would want to use a teensy in a enclosure that has not much height, what are usable solutions that keep the teensy "removable"?

I was thinking about pins with a 90° angle or direct soldered wires.

Is it easy to bent the pins on a teensy "with pins"?


Alain
 
I use low-profile headers and sockets, resulting in a removable Teensy with a height lower than 10mm (or 11,6mm taking the carrier PCB into account). I use it to fit a Teensy and a Wiz820io in an enclosure.

IMG_20161114_153751.jpg

I can look up the specific part number if it interests you.
 
Bending pins already soldered to a Teensy will not end will. Together they are stronger than the PCB and one at a time would mean a jig of some sort. And a mating connector.

If slot is long and shallow can you make it work with just the pins down one side + power/gnd from the other side? That would allow use of normal 90 degree bend headers and sockets plus a flying lead for which ever power is on the other side.

If you want both rows then firing an ebay search at:
'40pcs dupont female'
May get you a cable assembly that wouldn't be too tedious to plug a Teensy onto using angled headers, the inside going up and the outer set going down with the leads stacked two deep.

A slide in connector like the pi compute modules would be even better but they need a different PCB edge
 
Could you just use an enclosure with a lid, mount the board in the bottom of the box and remove lid for access?

What sort of enclosure did you have in mind?
 
Thanks for all the replies. It's clear that bending existing pins is a bad idea.

I would use 5 rotary encoders and a few buttons for a device that's use in front (or at the side) of a keyboard. I would like to keep the height to the necessary height for the rotary encoders.

metal sheet at the top and dummy pcb (with no electrical traces, but wires) at the bottom.

If i look at the solution from Epyon I can get to a bit more than 10mm.
 
Machine headers are also shorter (at least the ones I've played with) than more common square cross section pin headers. There are two big catches to machine pins: very few insertion/removal cycles before they stop making reliable contact, and the force required to remove a large group of pins could make removing the Teensy even one time nearly impossible.

I used to work at a company that surface mounted Teensys on to their own boards, like a system on a module (SOM). This works, but board houses will make you eat cost of the assembly failures. They eventually stopped being clever about this and copied the Teensy layout onto their own board and started buying boot loader chips.
 
Machine headers are also shorter (at least the ones I've played with) than more common square cross section pin headers. There are two big catches to machine pins: very few insertion/removal cycles before they stop making reliable contact, and the force required to remove a large group of pins could make removing the Teensy even one time nearly impossible. ...

When I started I really wanted machine pin headers to work - so much cleaner and shorter ( harder to find and more expensive ) - but indeed reliable plug-ability on what I found was bad. I ended up tinning some pin legs to make them bite before I gave up. The Adafruit $8 for 5 pack of 36 pins is nice - and I found I could bend the pins (the right way away from opening) and solder them at 90° angle on a proto board edge.
 
I have been looking for https://www.adafruit.com/product/3008 for ages, my friend used them to great susses one one of our flying creations, I can also advise ageist soldering direct to the pcb :'(

I am looking forward to having my teensies lower to the board :) now I have ordered some more :)

Shame adafruits are so dear + UK shipping, im only buying the odd pack for now... the cheapest thing I could find in the uk was ebay, about £10 for a pack of 5, I assume resold from ada. any one have any cheaper options in Europe?
 
I've never seen an alternate source - they seem unique to Adafruit as the maker and everything resold from them (with markup).
 
@AlainD,
What sort of rotary encoder are you considering?
Do you have a part URL for one that works well with Teensy?
 
When I am going for a semi-finished, non professional, final project, as in non breadboard prototype, I usually just solder the components with some 30+ awg silicon wire, tape them down with some thin 3m double side tape, and heat shrink it all. Heat shrink is fairly cheap so if you need to make changes then just cut if off, make your changes, and heat shrink it again. You can still push the buttons through the heat shrink and if you are using rotary encoders, then just poke a few holes in it.
 
If i look at the solution from Epyon I can get to a bit more than 10mm.
The parts I use are the Samtec SLW sockets and the TLW headers, part numbers SLW-114-01-T-S and TLW-114-06-T-S to be precise. These provide a mating height of just 6.6mm between boards, provided everything lines up correctly (you see in my picture mine doesn't :rolleyes: ). You can probably even go lower with backside sockets, but I still needed some room between the Teensy and the carrier PCB to mount an SD socket.

If you have a VAT number you can request free samples from Samtec.

One word of caution though: removing the Teensy from this socket does require a flatheaded screwdriver, so it's not as easy as removing it from a breadboard or standard sockets. You also need to watch out not to bend pins. But it's give and take I suppose.
 
When I am going for a semi-finished, non professional, final project, as in non breadboard prototype, I usually just solder the components with some 30+ awg silicon wire, tape them down with some thin 3m double side tape, and heat shrink it all. Heat shrink is fairly cheap so if you need to make changes then just cut if off, make your changes, and heat shrink it again. You can still push the buttons through the heat shrink and if you are using rotary encoders, then just poke a few holes in it.

Hi

I suppose that you also solder the wires directly to the teensy?
 
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