USB shield and Proto Terminal Blocks don't fit together

[jlastofka]

I'm stacking a processor board, a USB board and the Terminal Block board for some Hall Effect sensor experimenting. When I do this stackup, a normal USB micro plug doesn't even come close to fitting into the available socket. I don't get what they were thinking. Or am I missing something? This seems like a very basic use of the products. Something they'd have designed for, and tested and/or lots of people would be running into this.

I cut away one side of the USB cable plug housing and ground down the excess pin and solder protrusions under terminal sockets 8, 9 and SS. Fortunately there was plastic material inside the USB plug right where it wants to contact those ground down pins so now everything works perfectly for me. Photo attached.

What are other people doing? And why did I have to do this?

-Jeff

[TinyCircuits]

Hi Jeff,

This is definitely a known problem and sorry that it caused you pain.  It's the big reason that the USB TinyShield now has an option to come out at the top instead of the side, for mechanical conflicts like this.  The top mount USB connector version will work with terminal block board as is (no modifications needed).  The other option is to stick another board in between the USB TinyShield and the terminal block board, but this is not ideal in some cases. 

https://tiny-circuits.com/tinyshield-usb.html

The big issue with a system like there is isn't a perfect universal solution, some of the boards are wider (namely the TinyScreen and the Terminal Block board), while others are long (like Bluetooth, WiFi, etc), so different ones will have different mechanical conflicts.  We are shrinking other boards (like WiFi and Bluetooth), to hopefully make this less of an issue.

Again, sorry for your pain, but you came up with a good solution!

Ken
TinyCircuits

[jlastofka]

Thanks for the reply. I understand this is an evolving product line and there will be issues as new ideas come along and have to be fit in with existing hardware. Part of my reason for posting and asking was to see if there were other ways (plug extensions, whatever) available to solve this one, and partly to show others a way to solve it. My way's working fine for now. I'll keep an eye out for the new board configurations.

I stumbled onto your stuff at Fry's and bought a starter kit. Then I ordered a small selection from Tiny-Circuits. I can already see some more I want to get.

-Jeff