SwitchPad: LaunchPad Gender Changer

[David Bender 28]

Hi All,

  I got fed up with male headers on the LaunchPad, so I made up a small PCB to gender change the LaunchPad. It has the nice side effect that it is easy to switch my LaunchPad among different projects. Check it out

 

https://analog10.com/posts/000_switchpad.html

 

Thanks,

Dave

 

Edited April 19, 2013 by bluehash
Uploaded Pictures.

[roadrunner84 466]

Nice, though I prefer the latch-two-female-headers-together solution from larisan. Or I just use the male header and use a dip socket upside down to access the pins.

[bluehash 1,581]

 

Hi All,

  I got fed up with male headers on the LaunchPad, so I made up a small PCB to gender change the LaunchPad. It has the nice side effect that it is easy to switch my LaunchPad among different projects. Check it out

 

https://analog10.com/posts/000_switchpad.html

 

Thanks,

Dave

Not bad. Did you have to cut it manually? or did the board house do it. I like the way it bridges over to the other jumpers.

 

Edit: Moving to the Boosterpack section.

Edited April 9, 2013 by bluehash
Moving to the Boosterpack section

[johnnyb 4]

Nice board. I like both of those solutions but find I use the few female-male jumpers I have or make one by joining a female-female and male-male jumper.

[David Bender 28]

@roadrunner84: I tried the double header solution but I think it only works well with badly toleranced headers. I could not get it to work consistently.

 

@bluehash: What's depicted is the OSH park prototype I made. As it was my first PCB of course I made the mistake of not fixing my perimeter edge cuts, so I got a solid rectangle. The PCB kit I will have for sale are properly cut and are tab routed in the middle so the pair snaps apart.

[David Bender 28]

@johnnyb: Yeah I used M-M and F-F cables for awhile. It usually works, but the cheap ones I bought had connectivity issues at the M-F juncture. Again loose tolerance problems. So I had to position the wires just right or my project didn't work.

[cubeberg 540]

You might be able to give yourself a bit more room by bending the legs on female headers like this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11543

cool idea - I've thought about doing something like this to make extra-long spacers for tall booster packs (like RobG's ethernet BP).

[LariSan 81]

Dave, I'd love to order a few and try them out. Plus, I'm always a fan of purple boards :-)

Thank you for sharing it, your website looks like it's going to be pretty amazing. 

[David Bender 28]

LariSan, the price per unit is $3.15, including PCB, 4 1x10 female headers, 2 2x2 extra long headers, and 1 2x3 extra long headers. I am still putting my store together but if you PM me, we can set up a paypal payment or the like. I hope this isn't a dealbreaker, but the purple was a prototype; the production version is red!

[D^2 24]

I'm very surprised you didn't name it the LaunchPad Gender Bender.

[David Bender 28]

If you are interested in the SwitchPad, you can purchase it here (store just opened today):

 

https://analog10.com/store/SwitchPad.html