Ya: expansion bay idea

Jon Phillips jon at rejon.org
Mon Jul 12 14:39:33 EDT 2010


I think removing the speaker is fine.

Any way we can make the device more hackable and for hackers at a
reasonable/minimal cost is good since its targeted at hackers.

Jon

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Bas Wijnen <wijnen at debian.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I like the idea.  If you just make a connector with some interesting
> pins (serial, some unused gpio), you can turn the ben into a mini-SAKC.
> :-)
>
> Adding boards inside the Ben doesn't sound very useful to me, as I would
> probably want to change what's connected all the time.  But of course
> that may be just me; I do see the beauty of having it inside, and can
> imagine that some people only connect one thing anyway.
>
> Removing the speaker sounds like a big sacrifice, though.
>
> Also, the modifiable case is a very good idea IMO. :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Bas
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 03:33:53AM -0300, Werner Almesberger wrote:
>> The Ben has a bit of free space near the speaker that can be put
>> to good use. E.g., for adding a connector for the serial console
>> http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/File:Hwmod_serial_1.jpg
>>
>> or for adding the Ben variant of IDBG:
>> http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/idbg-v1-pcb.jpg
>> http://www.almesberger.net/misc/ben/idbg-v1-case.jpg
>>
>> This got me thinking of whether it would be possible to turn
>> this into a general area for small extension modules.
>>
>> If removing the speaker, there would be a lot of space, about
>> 400 mm2. Even better, there would be holes for mounting screws.
>> Sufficiently thin boards could also be mounted directly on the
>> speaker, although removing them may also mean to remove the
>> speaker.
>>
>> This leaves the problem of making a hole into the case for any
>> connectors the board may add. There are two issues here: 1)
>> making complex holes can get messy and you only have one try,
>> and 2) if using different boards, the case would have to have
>> holes for all of them.
>>
>> However, there may be a solution: if the case would have a
>> large opening covered by a removable plastic piece, one could
>> just modify that piece, without having to touch the case.
>>
>> The piece could even be part of the board. Since the pieces
>> should be very inexpensive to make, Sharism could just sell a
>> bag of them to people who want to make this kind of additions.
>>
>> People could of course also build their own covers from other
>> materials or with a 3D printer.
>>
>> How does this sound ?
>>
>> - Werner
>>
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-- 
Jon Phillips
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