[SteveGarward]

Originally Posted by controls weenie

I have been reading many of these post and I have not understood the benefit of the mxp pcb. All I can see is that it is an exercise in relocating the connector from deep inside the 2x17 male connector.

Yes and no. It allows you to have easy access to the pins in the MXP, and lay them out in a manner that is easy to use - such as providing ground pins and in a 3-pin arrangement so you can plug in a regular PWM cable. To relocate the connector we just need a cable. You then still have the issue of what you connect to it and how.

Originally Posted by controls weenie

I have several expansion ideas but my thoughts are to connect directly to the 2x17 male connector.

You could use a connector with a cable and solder the wires directly to things, for sure. It's just often more inconvenient to do so, depending on what exactly you're trying to do.

Originally Posted by controls weenie

I am not seeing the benefit of the expansion board. Moreover, there are no active or passive issues.

The benefit is 'ease of handling'. Given the current preliminary rules/rulings/statements (especially today's response on the forums), I'm not sure where just plugging something straight in (say, an encoder) through wire on a cable/connector would sit on the active/passive fence. But, they are working on it.