

Flotilla for Raspberry Pi – Making for Everyone - benn_88
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pimoroni/flotilla-for-raspberry-pi-making-for-everyone

======
radcom123
Hi I love the flotilla overall but I'm concerned about your choice of
connector for connecting the dock to the sensors for 2 reasons:

1\. The module rope appears to go against the USB 2.0 spec as the spec forbids
the use of micro-usb to micro-usb cables. Now I know you aren't using USB for
the data transfer but the cables could be used by someone who doesn't know
that the cables can't be used that way to connect say two smartphones
together.

2\. By using the micro-usb connectors on the dock to connect to the sensors
someone could connect the sensors to something say a smartphone (with the
module rope) or to a computer (using the micro-usb to usb-A) which risks
damaging both the sensor and the device been connected to, or worse plugging
either the sensors or the sensor side of the dock into a phone charger again
with the use of a micro-usb to usb-A. as I'm sure you are aware people will
try to connect things together in ways the designer never thought of as long
as they can fit together.

Its fine if you have already thought of this and accounted for it by designing
protection in or if the usb connectors are just been used while its in
development, but if you intend for it to be used in places like schools this
could be a major issue as it could quite easily damage equipment its not my
place to tell you your job or anything but these are my concerns anyway that
is just my two cents.

~~~
whiskers
Hey!

1\. The cables have a "twist" internally so they electrically match if you if
you attempt to "loopback". They'll also have custom branding on the ends to
make it clear they are not USB cables.

2\. The modules/dock/cables are electrically compatible with USB (5V power,
3V3 data) and won't cause any damage to a USB device.

The reason we selected those connectors is because they are rated for many
insertions, relatively cheap and easy to get assembled as proper moulded
cables, SMT placeable, and strong. We did evaluate many options but nothing
came close to the quality at a reasonable price.

Hope that answers your question!

~~~
radcom123
Ah that is good to hear as I have seen in the past a number of things which
use USB connectors, (for the same reasons you mention) but don't follow the
spec at all. Which causes all kinds of fun problems.

Keep up the great work.

~~~
whiskers
Thanks! :-)

------
whiskers
Hey Ben, thanks for submitting this!

This is Jon from Pimoroni - we just launched Flotilla today.

We've been working on Flotilla for just over a year - the vision is to provide
an electronics experimentation system that scales with ability and has as few
restrictions as possible.

The hardware in the video is a little out of date but pretty representative of
our final design. The main change is we've swapped to round/thinner cabling to
make it easier to route them around in your projects.

The Dock maintains the state of the system receiving updates from sensors and
issuing commands to connected devices. It then sanitises the data and discards
duplicates before passing it via USB serial to the host Raspberry Pi.

If anyone has any questions I'll hang around to answer them best I can!

------
gadgetoid
Arr!

Phil from Pimoroni checking in! Ask me about Cookbook and Rockpool, or
anything else really!

