Mounting Photon

Hardware
1

I’m designing a wood-based product that has a Photon, and I need to mount it somewhere on the wood.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

The best thing I can think of is soldering it to the ProtoShield (adds extra $3 and labor), and screwing that shield into the wood:

2

Recess it into the wood, and use some screws with nylon washers that overlap the recessed area to keep the Photon from falling out?

3

Are you using a headerless Photon or with headers?

Have you got any pins of the Photon in use?
If so, how have you connected these?
What are the mechanical demands (shock resistance, temp change, …) for the mount?
Does the Photon need to be extractable or would a permanent mount be acceptable?

4

@ScruffR I could use it with or without headers, it doesn’t matter - whatever allows me to mount it easier.

Re: Pins, yes, it will be connected to a strip of lights, the reset button will probably be exposed to another button (unless I can find a way to mount it outward facing, and have a small hole in the wood to allow someone to stick a pencil inside to reset it). And it will be connected to a 2.1mm mounted jack for VIN/GND.

These can be connected either through directly soldering or through a Poke-in connector.

There are very little to none mechanical demands on the mount - the product is stationary, enclosed, and not exposed to water. Wood can slightly expand/contract, but that wouldn’t be a problem in this case.

The Photon does not need to be extractable, a permanent mount would be fine.

5

With a small drill, drill some holes you could put the Photon into, then glue it in carefully?
With a headerless photon you could recess it and then swivel something over the (now empty) pin holes to keep it in place?

6

Hi @njonas

It is really meant to be attached to a printed-circuit board–almost any will do, like these inexpensive ones that can be cut with scissors:

The benefits are you get to put mounting holes anywhere you like in the mounting board and you can solder all the wires so the mechanical stability of everything is greatly improved. If you are soldering wires directly to Photon pins, you will eventually break one off in my experience.

7

Since you are connecting several pins on either side of the device I’d agree with @bko that I’d be best to use a “mounting” board.

Other solutions would be:

  • wooden blocks with grooves to slot/slide a headerless Photon into
  • wooden block running underneath the middle of a Photon with headers and strapping it with rubber band or cable ties or glueing
  • glueing headerless directly to base
  • grooves in your wood base for the pins to slot in and glueing unused pins into the groove (e.g. heat glue)
  • any combination of above plus loads more :wink:

Your phantasy is the limit :sunglasses:

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8

@njonas, you could make a receptacle made from layers of laser cut acrylic where the Photon would be the “meat in the sandwich”. Laser cut screw holes to fasten the sandwich to the wood block. It has the side benefit of being able to be engraved and multiple choice of coloured material.

9

@bko thank you, I think I like this solution the best!

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