Arduino backplane for the μpad

ArduinoThe μpad system is based around the idea of a common backplane with replaceable controller boards and module boards. This approach works well with the controllers we’ve designed so far. At first glance it looks like the Arduino would be a good match for the μpad. It is slightly smaller than our standard controller board dimensions. So we could a board to adapt from the Arduino footprint to our controller footprint. The issue with this is that it adds expense for an extra board that is only adapting the connections from the Arduino to the μpad backplane. The alternative would be a dedicated backplane for the Arduino. This is less expensive but we lose the flexibility of being able to change the controller.

It is a classic trade off situation that comes up so often in engineering. At the moment we are moving towards the idea of a dedicated backplane for the Arduino. We’ll keep you posted on what we decide. Feel free to add your own opinion in the comments below.

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