Introduction: ST Micro Nucleo Mount

ST Micro recently introduced a series of small, inexpensive development boards. They have female headers laid out like the Arduino and additional male pins for other signals. The male pins exdend both above and below the board. This makes it less straight forward to reuse one of my spare Arduino mount plates. I used scrap pieces of wood and a few screws to make something to get me started.

The design file I used for the laser cutter is included here. I suggest you change the text at the top to your own name before cutting it out

Step 1: Parts Required

1. ST Micro Nucouleo board. They are supposed to all have the same layout, but I am using a F401RE Nucleo

2. 7 screws and nuts. I used 4/40 nylon screws that are .7 inch long

3. Some wood and a laser cutter. You can use acrylic instead of wood. If you cut them out together, you need to start with a piece 7 inches by 3.6 inches.

4. 3 thick washers. I cut them out of the same wood I used for the main design. The center hole is about .12 inches and the outer diameter is about .2 inches. You can make it a little thicker, but you may have a clearance problem with one of the washers and the pin headers on the Nucleo.

5 . design file, which you can download in this instructable

Step 2: Insert Screws and Washers

The small board will go under the Nucleo. It is there to raise the Nucleo up so the female pins clear the base mount. The word Nucleo is printed on the board to make it quicker to see which side goes up. Insert 4 screw into this underboard and three screws into the nucleo, as shown. Put the washers on the screws on the bottom side of the Nucleo.

Step 3: Position the Underboard

Rotate the underboard up to mount onto the screws and washers protruding under the Nucleo. This will be a little tricky. You will have to put your fingers on top of the screw heads above the Nucleo to keep them from falling out. When you get he underboard positioned, screw nuts onto the 3 screw coming out of the Nucleo. The 4 screws on the underboard won't fall out, as long as they are inserted most or all of the way. There is not enough room above them to escape.

Step 4: Position Base Mount and Final Assembly

Position the base under the 4 screws and join. Screw nuts on the bottom. You will probably need to slide a small thin screwdriverunder the Nucleo to hold down the screw heads on the underboard. Once the 4 nuts are added, you could stop. I prefer to add some rubber feed on the bottom of the base to make it level. I show you what the Nucleo mount looks like from an edge view, when all mounted.

Step 5: Wrapup

I like the there is just enough room for me to mount a ribbon cable under the Nucleo. If you don't have enough room to do this, you may need to find a ribbon cable with a little smaller head, or use longer screws and an extra set of washers. This is my first instructables, so I am particularly looking for ways to improve it. If you see a way to improve it, and it is reasonable, I'll see what I can do. Unreasonable things would include asking me to take the nice open design file that anyone can read and convert it to some proprietary format.

Have fun

Step 6: Meta

I expect I will remove this step. I just signed up for Instructables. I am one of those people who always reads a document before agreeing to it. I noticed an error in their terms of service. Paragraph 13 is missing two words to mean what they seem to want to mean. Right now, it is grammatically incorrect. . I have not figured out where to report this. Any useful ideas?