From Prototype -> Production Question

General
1

I was wondering what people were doing to interface a photon or electron to external wiring after the prototyping is complete. On my project, I’m controlling a few relays and while it works just fine using a breadboard and wire jumpers, I do not think it’ll be sturdy enough to put in the field. I’m curious how others are addressing this concern.

2

Have you taken a look at the Particle relay shield? That’s pretty much exactly how you’d take that into production. Either use female headers to accommodate the photon, through-hole solder it, or SMD solder it. All that on a (preferably custom) PCB that has either your external components or has decent connectors to which you could hook them up.

3

Yes I did - while I’m doing much of the DEV work on a photon, the production device will use an electron. Unless I just missed it, the relay shield would be for a photon/core, not electron. So I should have said I was looking for an electron specific shield type thing.

Thank you

4

ControlEverything.com has Electron shields with varying numbers of FETs, solid state relays, signal relays, or high power relays.

5

But the general idea of the Photon Relay Shield would be easily scaled for the Electron.
I guess this was what @Moors7 might have had in mind when he said

Not to take the shield, but do it the way how it's done on the Relay Shield.

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6

The relay shield was for reference only (though you could still stick an electron in there, there’d just be some pins dangling off). In general, when designing a product, you usually create a PCB which does the exact thing you need it to do, in a way that’s most convenient. If you don’t feel like doing this yourself, then you can go with store-bought solutions, though they’re probably not as flexible and most likely more expensive.

2 Likes
7

Understood - My mistake. I appreciate the help.

8

Thank you for the pointer - didn't know the site existed. They have some nifty stuff!

1 Like
9

n8xja,

They have great stuff and release more almost weekly, sample code may lag a little but they normal answer question quickly.

One recommendation would be to consider purchasing the electron version of the products when available, everything that I have bought for the electron so far also works with the photon (i.e current monitors, relays and screw shields).

Chuck