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Q on board to board connections

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Jonathon_Doran:
I am inexperienced in PCB design, but have been a hobbyist for decades.  I am finally giving in to the idea of having someone else manufacture a board for me.  (I tried the do-it-yourself thing with a laser printer about 20 years ago, with mixed results).

For my current project, it is a bit big (600x150mm).  PCBShopper shows two vendors, with the US supplier the cheapest!

I have more options if I were to chop the board into two chunks, but the cost goes up.  That makes sense, setup takes time/money.  That isn't the problem.  This is a hypothetical, because I don't have enough problems right now.

If I needed to chop boards into pieces for fabrication, would it be feasible to create board-to-board connections if the signal frequency was low?  What would I need to take into account?

Would some headers and a ribbon cable work?  What if I put in Bus/Line drivers?

My current project is running low frequency, 10-20Hz, low voltage (3-5V).

rx8pilot:
It sounds like pretty much anything will work from what you are describing when you are pretty much DC low voltage and current.

What 'line drivers' or 'bus' are you talking about? I design 12Gbps line driver boards and that is a very serious challenge. If you are talking about RS-232 - it is a totally different thing.

I tend to choose the easiest to work with connectors that can still maintain signal integrity. Through hole headers are common and nice, but end up being manually assembled parts. There are SMT B2B connectors that are pick and place friendly, which can eliminate the hand assembly. That may or may not be a factor for you.

Lots and lots to choose from.

Jonathon_Doran:
Rather than use one large board, could I use two or more adjacent to each other with some connection. I was thinking of driving signals from one board to another.

I was checking to see if this was a reasonable thing to do, and if I needed to do anything special.

Jonathon_Doran:
Thanks for a great deal of information, that was exactly what I needed.

I don't believe that I need to down this road now, but possibly in the future.

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