Description
The so-called PC/104 connector is present at almost any CubeSat board. It derives from the PC/104 standard, which uses a stacked configuration of boards that use this connector to route power and data through dedicated pins. There is, as the name suggests, a total number of 104 pins that can be used.
This connector was likely first used by Pumpkin, one of the earliest CubeSat vendors, but it was never formally specified or standardized. That resulted in a big variety of implementations that we have today. For example, some have put their data bus to those pins that users use for power routing.
We don't intend to force a standard uponthe CubeSat community, but instead, our intention is to ensure that open source CubeSat boards (such as Libre Space Foundation and LibreCube boards) remain compatibly to each other.
The objectives of this discussion are:
- Gather examples from heritage and common practice regarding the pin usage of PC/104 connector
- Draft a pin assignment that defines mandatory pins, optional pins, and user defined pins
- Seek for harmonization with the PocketQube pin assignments
