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Neat!

I’m curious if one could design a usb type A plug/port that is reversible such that the PDM is always facing up. I know there are some flexible/thin pcb that allow for this, although not sure how robust that design is (otherwise I’d assume we’d never have to worry about rotating the USB cable three times before getting it right side up. Maybe I just described usb type C :))

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Interesting. You would have to invert the voltage on D+ and D- when it's in backwards. Or flip the lines somehow. Nice little puzzle that one

One could just have the contacts wired differently on the otherside of the board. The larger problem would be the contacts in the "backside" of the plug getting shorted by the USB connector shield. Outside of that it does sound doable. Maybe with a thin pcb and a USB-A shell it'd be doable...

Why not just put two plugs on the board, one in each orientation (and put the mic and rp2040 in the middle)?

I think you've hit the nail on the head: just use the type-C connector. Bonus, it means the connector could be on the same side of the PCB as all the surface mount components and not impact insertion direction. If you need a type-A, good news, there's adapters for that.

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