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Tower Bus

The physical bus is comprised of a small passive PCB backplane which acts as a rigid flying bus (in Eurorack terms). For prototyping this could be substituted with IDC ribbon cables even. The long edge of each card then has 2x80 (2x 2x40) pin headers:

  • Address Pins: A23-A00
  • Data Pins: D7-D0
  • Other Pins: RW, !RESET, !IRQ, Clock
  • Checkerboard Grounds In Between Digital Signals
  • Power (+3.3V, -12V, +12V, Extra Grounds)

  • Audio Header (Optional)

    • 4x1 Non-Stackable Header
    • L, Ground, Ground, R
    • Run wire to wire to a mixer card when using multiple audio sources

Pinout

24-pin dual row (DIL) stackable header

Col Row 1 Row 0
00 GND A23
01 A22 GND
02 GND A21
03 A20 GND
04 GND A19
05 A18 GND
06 GND A17
07 A16 GND
08 GND A15
09 A14 GND
10 GND A13
11 A12 GND
12 GND A11
13 A10 GND
14 GND A09
15 A08 GND
16 GND A07
17 A06 GND
18 GND A05
19 A04 GND
20 GND A03
21 A02 GND
22 GND A01
23 A00 GND
24 GND D7
25 D6 GND
26 GND D5
27 D4 GND
28 GND D3
29 D2 GND
30 GND D1
31 D0 GND
32 GND RW
33 !RES GND
34 GND !IRQ
35 CLK GND
36 GND GND
37 +3.3V +3.3V
38 -12V GND
39 GND +12V

Audio Pinout

4-pin SIL non-stackable header (will use cables)

Row 3 Row 2 Row 1 Row 0
L GND GND R

References

  • https://resources.altium.com/p/complete-guide-to-selecting-board-to-board-connectors
  • https://www.lcsc.com/product-detail/C41432069.html?spm=wm.fly.bg.0.xh&lcsc_vid=QVJbAVBRTlVYUAEEFlJWVlVTFVkLXl1VRFJYVQcHRVMxVlNeRFJYUFVSTlFaUzsOAxUeFF5JWBYZEEoKFBINSQcJGk4eFQsCAgIaSgADAwAHC0slQlJdVFBXTk8GEwkK