Best Ribbon Cable for Sense Hat?

[wwihead]

Hi everyone

Is there a best 40 pin ribbon cable to get as I want to try separating the Sense Hat to get a more accurate temperature reading. Also, do I need anything more to get the connection working?

Thanks so much

[Kratos]

As long as it is a ribbon cable, it should work.

Kratos

[mahjongg]

As long as it is a ribbon cable, it should work.

Actually no! If its an old PATA cable it can cause big troubles, they look like 40 pole flat cables but actually they carry 80 wires, more info here viewtopic.php?p=665572#p665572

using one may blow up your PI!

[geppetto]

I've just ordered one of these for the same purpose

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/black-hat-hacker



Phil

[Kratos]

As long as it is a ribbon cable, it should work.

Actually no! If its an old PATA cable it can cause big troubles, they look like 40 pole flat cables but actually they carry 80 wires, more info here viewtopic.php?p=665572#p665572

using one may blow up your PI!

I almost did that. Fortunately I realized it was a PATA cable before I plugged it in.

Kratos

[alphanumeric]

You can get tall stacking headers at places like Adafruit. https://www.adafruit.com/products/1979 It's what I'm going to try. Just plug it in between the Pi and sense hat. I have one on the way. I should have it in my hands by weeks end hopefully. I made a weather clock with my sense hat so I want good readings of the ambient temp. Right now I'm not getting that. The heat from the CPU is pushing my temp reading up to 30 C.

The old 40 wire, 40 pin IDE cables should work. You will also need a double row of long header pins. The Pi in male pins but the sense hat is a female header. The new 80 wire, 40 pin IDE cables are the ones to avoid. A couple of wires/pins are grounded/shorted for drive select.

[sparkie1]

Hi

Does anyone have any advice on how to get the Sense HAT working with a GPIO extension cable? I bought an extension from Pimoroni, and a 40 pin male-male IDE header from eBay. The HAT works perfectly on my B+ when plugged straight in. Using the extension cable, only the green and red LEDs light up and the pi refuses to boot. Reversing the orientation of the cable leads to no LEDs and no boot, so I think I'm the right way around.

The only problem I can think of is that the IDE header pins are too short, and are not making a good contact with the HAT's contacts. Is this a possibility? If so, does anyone know where I can get a set of longer pins?

Thanks
Rob

[alphanumeric]

Hi

Does anyone have any advice on how to get the Sense HAT working with a GPIO extension cable? I bought an extension from Pimoroni, and a 40 pin male-male IDE header from eBay. The HAT works perfectly on my B+ when plugged straight in. Using the extension cable, only the green and red LEDs light up and the pi refuses to boot. Reversing the orientation of the cable leads to no LEDs and no boot, so I think I'm the right way around.

The only problem I can think of is that the IDE header pins are too short, and are not making a good contact with the HAT's contacts. Is this a possibility? If so, does anyone know where I can get a set of longer pins?

Thanks
Rob

You have to make sure pin 1 on the GPIO is connected to pin 1 on the sense hat. The red strip isn't the only thing to go by either. I bet yours is reversed. Pin 1 is going to Pin 2 and Pin 2 to Pin 1, etc. I "think it needs to be plugged into the sense hat from the top? Checking the +5V and +3.3V voltages on the sense hat header with an volt meter should tell you.

[sparkie1]

Hi, thanks for the advice alphanumeric, you were correct.

For anyone having the same problem (partial lighting up of sensehat with red and green LEDs only, no successful boot) then it is likely that the ribbon cable has reversed the top and bottom layer of pins.

The solution, which was not immediately obvious to me, is that you can take the female header off the bottom of the SenseHat. The frees you up to insert the cable from the top side of the hat.

[kairi]

I had exactly the same problem and got it fixed, thank you a lot for the solution @sparkie1 !

[webrtchacks]

I have a project where I needed to plug the ribbon cable into the back of the sense hat instead of the front. I was struggling on how to reverse the pins and then I realized I could easily do this by joining 2 cables. I used some header pins (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U8 ... UTF8&psc=1) to connect two ribbon cables.

It is a little long but does the trick.

[dpawson]

https://www.dominicsayers.com/sense-hat/ Seems quite logical, unless you want the sense hat on top of the
rpi - not good for an rpi 4.

Purchased. Mounted RPI 4, fan (usb powered), sense hat.

Ribbon 'stretches' the standoff posts, misaligns hat!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A6KNR_ ... sp=sharing