10 years ago it was pretty common to design small submodules and stitch them together into a final assembly, that would get upgraded piece-meal as tech/product needs evolved
about 2-3 years ago it became more economical to just design an entire bespoke board for any new project, and then run an entirely new board for any subsequent changes. i loved not dealing with interconnects anymore
but now I'm back to reusable modules and sub-assemblies again, because by the time i'm finished designing an entire board, a single part will be out of stock and i'd have to start from scratch :(
Yeah but what are you doing about connectors to join the boards together? There's serious shortages of things like JST connectors right now just like chips.
if possible, leave enough clearance to swap a vertical for a horizontal in the 11th hour ;) or use larger/more common widths like 8 or 16 position connectors even if you only need 5 or 11 or them filled
if you can reach for creative solutions, a couple months ago it was cheaper for me to use one of those 6-pin power only USB-C connectors with an off-the-shelf USB-C cable than a 6-pin molex cable assembly...
10 years ago it was pretty common to design small submodules and stitch them together into a final assembly, that would get upgraded piece-meal as tech/product needs evolved
about 2-3 years ago it became more economical to just design an entire bespoke board for any new project, and then run an entirely new board for any subsequent changes. i loved not dealing with interconnects anymore
but now I'm back to reusable modules and sub-assemblies again, because by the time i'm finished designing an entire board, a single part will be out of stock and i'd have to start from scratch :(