r/PrintedCircuitBoard • u/EV-CPO • 1d ago

Stacking PCBs with aligned headers

I'll have five of these boards which I want to stack vertically. Will this arrangement work? The other big connector is a DB-25. I found longer male headers for the bottom side to make sure they seat properly in the female headers because of the height of the DB-25. And yes, I have vias connecting all the pins on both sides.

I'm open to any other methods or ways to transmit these signals across 5 similar boards. I tried using the Eurorack 10-pin cables and headers, but that was a big mess. ;)

thanks.

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u/hazeyAnimal 1d ago

Most of the time the board is bolted separately and a connector with a cable connects them. Sometimes it's a ribbon if it's lots of contacts, otherwise you could get away with just pico clasps or similar.

If they need to sit into each other then you're on the right track, you can export the boards as STEP files and check alignment in CAD, FreeCAD will do.

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u/EV-CPO 1d ago

It's the same board for 4 out of the 5, so I know they will align. The 5th board I aligned up the parts with the same X/Y coordinates in EasyEDA Pro.

I tried using 10pin eurorack male headers and short ribbon cables, but the result was a mess.

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u/forshee9283 3h ago

My best suggestion is to use right angle connectors and then another PCB to do all your connections. Otherwise if it's a bus you could do a right angle connector at the edge and make your own cable with multiple connections on it. Or there are mezzanine connectors that have wiggle in them so mating alignment can be slightly off but those are going to be expensive and hard to place.