Many of us start our digital sensor projects with the hopeful assumption that "all I need to do is hook up some wires and write some code." Sometimes, it really is that easy. Connector pin assignments between the sensor and processor board match, example code provides the necessary protocol and we are off and running that afternoon. However, we often find that there is a lot more to developing reliable communications between a sensor and a master system processor. Here is a quick list of things that can delay our success in our sensor integration work, using the SPI interface on a MEMS IMU as our object lesson. Some of them are directly influenced by code, others are not. Successful integration requires that all of these needs be met.
I hope that this helps! Remember, it takes more than a few lines of code to assure reliable digital communications.
Thanks NevadaMark for this detailed note. It's useful to consider all ways that a 'small' project can fail. Often we think in terms of 'this afternoon, I'll just get this board running together...', without considering some or all of what you list above.
Thanks for the reminder!
-Paul
jchong
Thank you for providing this link!
What Could Go Wrong: SPI | Hackaday