Computing stuff tied to the physical world

Meet the Heading Board replacement

In Hardware on Apr 2, 2012 at 00:01

The Heading Board has been sold out for some time now. I’ve not been reordering it because it’s a bit quirky (needing the IRQ pin as well) and probably also not really all that sensitive.

To continue to offer a solution, I’ve decided to switch to the Modern Device 3-axis Compass Board instead:

DSC 2982

As you can see, it has a port-compatible header footprint on one side. The other side is for use with a 5V system, such as an RBBB or Arduino. Which is why there is also a 3.3V regulator on there.

The board is slightly smaller than a standard JeePlug and does not have port headers on both sides to support daisy chaining, but apart from that it’s totally JeeNode-/port-compatible. You can simply put it on the end of the chain if you want to mechanically stack this along with other I2C-enabled plugs.

Be careful about the orientation: it not the same as other plugs and there’s no “dot” next to the “P” pin.

I’ve added a very basic implementation in JeeLib to access the HMC5883 chip on this board, with demo:

Screen Shot 2012 03 29 at 15 47 17

Sample output:

Screen Shot 2012 03 29 at 15 45 34

This new board has now been added to the JeeLabs shop.

  1. Why is it port-compatible? Did Modern Devices design it to JeeNode Ports, or did you use some standard port pin convention when designing the JeeNode?

    • I believe it’s the former. JC and Paul Badger already work together for wider distribution of each others products. Paul sells a selection of the JeeNodes and boards for the US market, and JC sells several of the modern device boards, including the USB-BUB we all know and use. So it makes sense for Paul to make a board that works with JC’s gear.

      As for the standard port pin convention, well it is, it’s the JeePort standard :-)

    • Correct – Paul knew about ports when designing this one.

  2. So is there a GPS node in the works?

    • Heh, no… but it should not be hard to wire the different pieces together.

  3. I have this board, it seems the INT line is not connected?

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