Silly paneldue connection idea…

kenblu24 · 24 Jan 2017, 03:16

Stupid idea… The paneldue connector uses 4 pins to connect to the duet wifi. 2 power, 2 data. Hey, that sounds like USB! I'm sure using a USB cable for the paneldue connection would work, but I'm curious - What would happen if I connected the paneldue to the USB on my computer, assuming the pins are wired to their correct USB counterparts?

Also, I noticed that the SD card connector has 5 pins. USB 3.0 has an additional 5 pins. I could have a single micro USB connector from the paneldue to the duet...

dc42 · 24 Jan 2017, 08:38

The USB port on PanelDue is only active when the firmware has been erased ready for programming. Also both USB ports are device only with no host or OTG functionality.

I am looking at the possibility of using the 10-way ribbon cable to carry all the signals and power.

kenblu24 · 24 Jan 2017, 23:09

No… I'm thinking of jury rigging a micro-usb 3.0 female header to the paneldue connector, not the micro-usb header that's already on the board. The 4 pins for the paneldue-to-duet would go with the normal usb 2 pins, and the SD card connection could be wired through the additional 5 pins that USB 3 adds. On the Duet side, I would do the same.

dc42 · 24 Jan 2017, 23:29

That sounds feasible. However, I think it's simpler to route everything through the 10-way ribbon cable. If your Duet WiFi PCB is version 1.01 then it already has the transmit, receive and +5V lines connected to the CONN_SD socket. Then all you need to do is to jumper those pins on the back of the PanelDue board from the ribbon cable connector to the 4-pin connector.