3. Edit Pick&Place

By default, there are various components on the board that you might not want to include. We'll go through them step by step.

Open the Pick&Place file in Excel, Google Sheet or similar:

Here you can decide which components you should pay for and get assembled on the board. Here are the components that you should consider removing:

1. XH connectors

By default, there are XH connectors to the 3 USB connection points (USB IN, USB1 and USB2), as well as to the LED connection point. You might want to solder wires or pin headers to these holes? Delete any of these rows to remove the XH connector.

2. Micro USB connector

The micro USB connector slightly protrudes from the side of the board. You can connect the board via the USB_IN wire holes, so you might feel like the micro USB connector is not needed and indeed can get in the way of a snug fit into your controller casing.

3. External ADCs

The 2 external ADCs (ADS1115) gives you additional 2 x 4 analog inputs. However, they are quite expensive. These two alone are about half the cost of the board. You can remove them if you dont need them. You'll still have 4 analog inputs available without these two. Remember to deactivate the ADCs that you remove from the project.

4. Port expanders

The 2 port expanders (PCA9555) gives you additional 2 x 16 digital inputs. They are not very expensive, at around 3$ each. However, why add them if you're not going to use them? You can delete any of these rows if you can do without the extra inputs. Remember to deactivate the port expanders that you remove from the project.

5. J1 pin header

The J1 pin header are two pins right next to the micro usb connector. When these are connected to eachother (by for instance using a jumper) you will power the board from USB. When they are not connected, you'll get no power to the board - unless you power it from VIN.

The idea is that you'll use this to prevent the high voltage from a power supply on VIN to go backwards into the USB cable and mess up your computer. I could have used a diode, but that comes with voltage drop. And voltage drop makes for a sad sim racer.

You might not need to use VIN, you might not have or want to order jumpers, or you might want to solder a wire to connect the two wires holes instead of using a pin header. In any case, you can remove the pin header by deleting this row: