Dual Pogo Pins Probe Clip for Dual Castellated Modules by mofosyne

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a pogo pin adaptor for boards that uses dual castellation for surface mounted modules.
It takes advantage and requires the use of cutouts under the modules as an alignment for the pogo pin positioning and the 3d printed retention clips.
I have not bothered to make this parametric. But can do if requested. This was created to solve a specific problem I had.
You may be interested in that I took around 10 revisions before getting the final 11th revision that I liked best.
Once printed, you need to insert the pogo pins in, then insert the modules on top and solder the modules to the pogo pins legs.
Do note you will need to do a test print first, because this design requires tight tolerance and thus this may differ between printers. But once dialed in, the print is repeatable.
Revision Notes
Rev2 : Second revision since I had to deal with a module that requires a different dimention in the cutout. And also this module I had to deal with also has additional contact points on the top of the board.
Rev1 : First real release. Clips well and is designed for a module with only two castellations.
Print Notes
This is specifically designed not to require infills, and was printed on a 0.8mm nozzle at 0.2mm layer height. Took 54 minutes to print.
Also this requires accurate z axis calibration. You can use https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3113686 to check.
Default Design Spec
Since I have not made this parametric, unless you are willing to manually adjust the openscad design files... these are the specs I have done this in.
Spec of the probe pins
Probe extention/spring length: 3mm
Body of the probe : 13mm
probe pin diameter : 1mm
Spec of the castellation module (rev1)
module x length : 49.4mm
module y length : 27.5mm
module y length cutout area : 49.4mm

module y length cutout area : 18.83mm

pin pair count : 18
spacing between each pair of probes : 2.54mm
first probe spacing from bottom of module : 4mm
Spec of the castellation module (rev2)
module x length : 49.4mm
module y length : 27.5mm
module y length cutout area : 48.3mm

module y length cutout area : 18.9mm

pin pair count : 18
spacing between each pair of probes : 2.54mm
first probe spacing from bottom of module : 3mm
Design Notes:

Tried different clip design. The best is often the simplest. I tried other designs to try and add bit of kerning to reduce the springyness, but found that I could easily just reduce the springyness to a manageable level by cutting holes on the clip. Thus the more reliable and straightforward clip design similar to revision 1 was chosen.


Needed to position the pcb with spacing away from the pogo pin. This is because with this many pogo pins, having it pushed even 50% of the way would have the pogo pins provide too much force on the pcb... straining the retaining clip. Thus just spacing the pcb surface 2/3 away from the pogo pin and reducing the retaining clip force, allowed for easier connection and disconnection.

I opted for the sharp tooth pogo pin, but this may not be a good idea for higher current devices. For high current requirements, you need to pick a pogo pin with a head that has multiple contact points.