Why is the sanguino wiring diagram so confusing? I'm about to buy a bunch of male and female headers to go along with the pololu stepper driver and the sanguino, and it seems like each stepper driver has things that go all over the place. Here's what I'm talking about: [reprap.org] .
Is it a trifle to rearrange things in the programming? Or should a just buy a thousand 1-pin female headers?

The diagram you linked to is a schematic, not a board or physical layout, so it does not show component or header physical placement. It is not intended to do show that, only the scheme (what connects to what) of the system.

You shouldn't need a pile of 1pin female headers... you might end up using a pile of 1pin male pins, see http://reprap.org/wiki/Generation2Electronics#Wiring_connections, that is one of the documented approaches

Editing pins.h and recompiling the firmware in the Arduino IDE will allow you to use different Arduino pins for different purposes (just be sure anything needing PWM uses a pin that can do PWM, and so forth -- obvious all Ardino I/O pins are not the same in terms of their capabilities). So if that makes wiring easier in your situation, yes, you can definitely do that.

---

---

Jonathan

I was planning on having the male headers on the sanguino and the drivers and things and making female-female jumper wires with the female headers to connect them, but now that I think of it, soldering onto one end with a female header on the other seems like less work while keeping the flexibility. Hm.

But yeah, it kind of threw me off how some of the stepper drivers in that schematic had some wires going to one side of the board and others going to the opposite side. pins.h seems like it's exactly what I was looking for, though. Thanks!