Direct wiring with Seeed XIAO nRF52840 Plus

[peterjc]

The Seeed XIAO nRF52840 Plus adds additional GPIO pins between the original ones, giving 20 in total, up from 11. This is more than enough to directly wire each of the 17 switches without any diodes, potentially much quicker & easier to solder?

It would mean a new PCB design and new firmware.

Is this a sensible idea, or am I overlooking something?

[peterjc]

I note you use the Seeed XIAO nRF52840 Plus in the https://github.com/carrefinho/visorbearer - I copied the footprint in KiCad and had an explore.

I think a direct wired "Forager Plus" PCB is doable (with new firmware to match of course), and you could probably have a battery cutout in the PCB allowing for a slightly thicker higher capacity battery too.

[peterjc]

Pull request #17 has an untested but in-theory ready direct-wired (no diode) version of the "Forager Plus" board using the Seeed XIAO nRF52840 Plus, still as two seperate different PCBs for left and right. That is on hold.

Discussion there has moved on to a more complicated reversible direct-wired board, which would be cheaper to have fabricated.

[peterjc]

I think I am done with the main wiring of the direct-wired (no diode) reversible PCB with an (ambitious) dual-sided controller footprint with cut-out to reach the B+ connection:

The main label, battery marker, connector, and direct solder points all need to be dual sided still - this will mean using the board without a case has a higher risk of shorts/shocks but that seems unavoidable with a reversible board.

I think I'll move the left/right top/bottom text to the middle where it will be hidden by the swithches, leaving the corner with just the core info "Forager Plus v1.0.0".

And per #18, I think I will (later) give this a battery cutout by bringing in the edge of the board...