HiFiBerry 

FAQ—Accessories

Stacking headers

Q: Can I have the board with the stacking headers already mounted?
A: No, due to production and shipping limitations, we are not able to provide boards with these headers soldered.

Q: The headers are already soldered. How can I mount the stacking headers?
A: You have to de-solder the existing headers. Note that we will not replace boards that were damaged by this procedure. This is for people who solder/de-solder really well.

Q: Can I buy the board without the headers soldered?
A: The HiFiBerry DAC board is available without the Raspberry Pi headers soldered. The HiFiBerry Digi is not available in this configuration today. We might have it in the future. As we’ve seen a lot of problems caused by bad solder connections on these headers, we decided to assemble all boards with these headers by default.

Q: Does board XYZ work with the DAC or Digi and the stacking headers?
A: We can’t say for sure. Often it will work. But sometimes these boards also draw power from the Raspberry 3.3V, which might be a problem (it’s limited to less than 50mA). Also, boards using the I2C pins for other things won’t work. So you have to try it by yourself. We won’t guarantee it. Also, we won’t give refunds for boards with the stacking headers soldered that don’t work together with some additional component. The GPIO header is not designed as a bus for connecting different boards, so there’s always a risk that there will be conflicts. You can ask in our forum whether people have experiences with specific configurations.

Nylon spacer

Q: Does it need this spacer?
A:  We recommend a good mechanical connection between the Raspberry Pi and our boards. Some customers use just plain M3 screws with some nuts for this purpose. So you don’t absolutely need it, but the spacer makes mounting the board very easy. Therefore we recommend it.