 Timely. Okay. So we just chatted about this document about modules that use the M2 E-key standard to create plug-and-play like brain modules, microcontrollers to add on to breakouts or dev boards. So you've got the SIPPID, you know, AI accelerator. You've got SparkFun. Looks like they've got their Bluetooth chipset. Particle has a cellular module. This is... BakerDiary has an NRF 52 840. Google has the Coral Accelerator. These are all plug-in boards that use the M.2 standard, which you might be familiar with if you have a laptop because when you want to add Wi-Fi or cellular or like SSD disk space, you often do it over the M2 connector. And then there's different... It's interesting. It's just like just like every standard. It's a standard except it's not a standard, right? So when you go over to Wikipedia, you can read all about it. And the thing to watch for is the keying. So there's different slots. Like if you remember, like Isocard or PCI cards are slots that kind of tell you, you know, what connector, like what gig can fit into you. And if it doesn't mechanically fit, it's not going to electrically match. And so they try to use the mechanical connection to keep you from having incompatible things plugged in. So if you look at the M2 boards here, you actually see they all kind of have the same like notch over here and make or dare even wrote E above it, which is very handy. So these are all E notch connectors. Oops, sorry. And that key ID, you can see like, oh, there's like ones that are like, oh, these are designed for, you know, PCIe and there's ones that are designed for like, I guess SATA or audio and USB. But E key has UR, SDIO, I squared C, USB, and PCM, which is actually kind of makes sense for a module. Do you know how many M.2 devices could be plugged into a single bus? I mean, I think it's designed for only one. Yeah, I haven't seen any examples. Just, you know, one quick thing. This is like, you know, the particle folks made this is their M.2 and then it has, you know, feathers because they use the feather format. Yeah. The M.2 has like 70 pins on it. So it's like, it's very easy to like break it out into multiple. And this is their can feathering that I was like. As we explore this, we will let you know what we find out. OK, so the key ID is something you're going to watch for. We're looking for key IDE. And so one thing I tried when I first went to the key because I was like, well, I'll find this connector is I tried searching for M.2 connector and that was actually a mistake because there's actually like way too many things here. What you actually want. And I was like, well, is it like a rectangular connector? Like, kind of, is it a terminal block or a card edge connector? Like, it's kind of like a card edge connector, right? And it was actually a little, I mean, it turns out it was card edge, but it was a little weird to find out what it was. And then I realized when I went over to TE site that these are called M2 NGFF for new generation form factor. So what you want to search for is M2 NGFF. And then you'll actually see, OK, yeah, card edge because it's the only one that has like more than a few connectors. You'll see, of course, you can also get disk drives, right? That's a normal thing. Normally you would get a disk drive, maybe or SSD drive on an M2 form factor. We want the connector. OK, so I ended up over here and as normal, I looked for active and normally stocking because maybe I want to make an adapter or a breakout for this. And then I wanted a surface mount, you know, surface mount at right angle and I want through hole. I think that would be tough to use in equipment. And this is where I actually got, again, I got a little stuck because I was like, oh, no, there's like all these variations. But like, what's the difference? Like that one has like an A on it. Does that mean it gets A key? And then like, is this a little different? And then this is B. Is that a B key? Like, I was, you know, I look confusing. And then I noticed that they're all kind of the same part number two, one, nine, nine, one, one, nine. And then there's a dash and a number. And so I tried downloading the data sheet. And yeah, there's like this, the key and the thing. It's like it means something. So for E key, I want dash four. You can see here, I want like one dash one or like dash four. So I did end up going to the TE website because I thought this a little bit more clearer because they actually quite nicely show you the height. Like, here's what the differences are. So if you're going to get 4.2 millimeters high, that's without a one dash. And if you want it like a low, like closer to the PCB, 3.2 millimeters high, that would be a one dash. And then you can search, you can see here, they also see key A, key M, key B, key E, you know, and then finally get to key E. That's the one I want. Key E is this part number. I'm going to say that for the maker companies that are thinking about using this, we really all need to decide because there is a lot of different types and... Yeah, and what's weird is that like dash six is also... It's also... Yeah, and you know, 22 millimeters might great, but then there's where the, you know, the keying is, you know, if we make something, we'll get it, we'll try our best to get everyone together at least on an email or something. We have this repo, but as you can see it, we didn't really plan this video to kind of confirm that worry, but boy, if you're trying to make a product, look at all these choices. So when you buy these, one thing I'll definitely say is like watch out because it's so easy to get the one with the wrong keying. And the photo, I would not necessarily go by the photo. One because, you know, photos are sometimes generic, but also they don't like, if you don't have it in front of you, also like you're not gonna count the number of pads, right? Yeah, Turra just ordered the C841659 part from LCSC. Hope that it will work for this. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. You know, for connectors, I would recommend, you know, like you can always get it from Ditchkey and they have 10,000 in stock. One thing I've noticed about LCSC is sometimes they go out of stock, I've been bit by that a little bit, but it's good, so it's good to have a guaranteed supplier. Okay, so this one is going to be the E type and there's some cool stuff. So you'll see that there has been like a refresh design for Ditchkey's site. And there's a couple of cool things. So one, there's a 3D PDF, which I downloaded and it actually like works, like it's like a 3D model. And this is actually kind of cool because you can't see the contacts and the little notch where your PCB would fly into and you can also see the bosses, so this is where the locating dots. So you'll need to have those on your PCB as well. So this is kind of neat. I don't know if you can do different shading effects. I've never used this before, but this is kind of cool. You know, a million years ago, when I was at MAKE, we released the first PDF via podcasts and iTunes with the 3D model in it. This was over 10 years ago. And I always thought that 3D and PDFs because we're stuck with the PDF format. And so there's a lot of things that you can do with the PDF format like put in these 3D models that's helpful because there's a lot of different ways to render and look at these things. There are web viewers and there's other ways to do it. They also have all the footprints and downloadable things for a lot of folks, but I think this is gonna be helpful for other people. Another thing is you can actually kind of see it has an E embossed on it. I don't know if I can get these. It's tough to see with this lighting. I don't know if I can get it to visualize it, but there's like a little E. You know, if I move it around, you can read it. There's a little E on the marking. So I guess, yeah, the E is what tells you it's an E key. Okay, and the next step, I don't think that was nifty, is they now have a link to Snap EDA, which I don't think was there before. So what's cool is you can download it. I'm longed in, but when you go here, it'll actually have the CAD file with the footprint and the pinout. Now it's not the most beautiful of all drawings. I mean, you know, it's gonna be very bare bones. It's not gonna be, you know, if you're using a particular pinout, like you want pin one to be named ground, it's not gonna have that. It's gonna be called pin one. So you might want to take this and adapt it to have the pin names match the module you're using. So instead of being like, what's the URX pin? Oh, it's 19. And then like finding it, you can adapt it, but you can download the format and you can download an Eagle or Orcad or Altium or whatever. So I use Eagle CAD and you can open it. And there's a little instruction. And when you open in Eagle CAD, you'll see the footprint. And this is actually really nice because this part is what is annoying to make is like the pads all perfectly lined up and the correct sized boss holes. And I like that there's even a center point. So that's kind of handy so that the pick in place knows where to pick it up safely. So this is pretty cool. So some nifty new things. I think connectors especially and TE connectors, you'll have a good experience with them. I've always had good luck with TE connectors. They're high quality, they don't break, they're reliable. And these are clearly designed to like be used in stuff like laptops and backplains and like high reliability need products. Like they're not gonna be used in disposable electronics because most of the electronics don't use M2 connectors. So that's it. So if you wanna use M2 modules, you wanna add these to your board design, pick up TE2199119-4. That's my recommendation. It should fit with these modules quite nicely. Do you think people say M.2 or do you think you say M2? I have no idea. I'm gonna say M2. Someone will will actually. And then someone said, is the name of the thing Bossholes? Yeah, that's the name. Yeah, I call them, you know, they're bosses and you have a hole for the bosses. So they're bosses. A lot of people call their manager Bosshole. So, no they do. They don't know it. And they're orientation bosses, orientation holes. I mean, there's something that basically keeps the mechanical. You know, it's like donut holes. Let's just stick with Bossholes. Bossholes? Yeah. Donut holes, you know, they're not actually donut holes. They're made in a separate process. They're not like the leftover donut centers. You'd think they are, but they're not. They're made actually totally separately. Yeah. The more you know. It's all lies. Okay. That's the great search. Think of all the things you learned today. All right. And thank you so much, did you key and Lady Aida for doing a great search? Yes. Where in the world is that part I know?