This is not an actual Kicad question, I’m here b/c this community is most likely to understand what I’m looking for.
I am repurposing an Electric Objects EO1 (vintage 2016 or 2017) which is now defunct because of failure to connect to its host site. (The original company is long gone.) Upon dismantlement I find the processor appears to be a Boundary Devices i.MX6 board which has no problem booting up a fairly generic Linux ArmHF image from a USB stick via OTG cable.
I see there’s a footprint for what looks like a microSD connector on the left of this image:
It would suit my purposes quite well if I could simply reflow a connector onto these pads and boot from that.
Q1: How can I figure out what’s the right connector for this footprint?
Q2: If I find a suitable connector how much am I at risk for bricking the board if I load up a card and power it up?
Adding a microSD capability to the board is simply a “Nice to have,” but I’m mainly concerned about not damaging the gear in the process. Understanding this is all highly speculative, appreciate any insight provided.
If you want to find the “right” connector, then making a parallax free picture of your PCB and then use PCB Editor / Place / Add Image to add it as a background image is probably the best way. Then you can just test-fit connector footprints. KiCad itself does not have many uSD footprints (I count 6). Websites like SnapEDA and PcbLibraries may have hundreds of uSD card holder footprints you can try.
But a much simpler way would be to just get some uSD card holder, glue or clamp it to the PCB somewhere, and then solder 0.2mm enameled wires between the pads. As far as I know the 8 electrical pads are always in the same order. It may be a bit easier if you buy a breakout board for an uSD card holder.
As long as you don’t make short circuits it probably works, but there are never guarantees for things like this.
But also,
is it really worth doing this? Hacks like these used to be fun 15 years ago, but now the world has been flooded with EUR40 Linux boards, and communities around those boards that share the burden of getting it to work and maintaining a Linux distribution for it. Have you considered how much time it takes to get such a board up and running? I know it’s sad to destine a perfectly working board to the landfill, but keeping it alive does not make much sense either.
