Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 13-1:
he Ciseco Slice
of Pi
he primary advantages over using the low-cost Slice of Pi rather than just connecting
directly to the Pi's GPIO header are the labelling on the circuit board, which the GPIO header
lacks, and the use of female headers. hese allow you to use male-to-male
jumper leads
or even just lengths of trimmed wire to connect the board to a breadboard (as shown in
Figure 13-2) or other circuit board—or even to connect components directly into the head-
ers. he Pi's male headers, in contrast, require the use of specialised male-to-female jumper
leads.
he Slice of Pi also ofers a small amount of protection for the Pi. he use of female headers
means it's harder to accidentally short-circuit two pins, and the spacing of the headers—
with the eight general-purpose pins brought to one header and the other specialised pins
brought to another—makes wiring mistakes less likely. More importantly, the Slice of Pi
doesn't provide direct access to any of the pins labelled as Do Not Connect (see Chapter 12,
“Hardware Hacking”), so there's less risk of damaging the Pi with a wrong connection.
