Casmer

If I have power supplied to the Netduino via the Vin pin will I cause damage by then plugging in the USB cable to debug?

I am using the SMTP Client from the net mf tool box and I am trying to figure out how to make it time out after 10 seconds when it can't connect to the smtp server. instead it just hangs. I am trying to set the receive timeout on the IntegratedSocket class, but I am not sure if its the connect or the receive time that is failing and so far setting the connect time is failing entirely.

_Sock.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReceiveTimeout, ReceiveTimeout);

how do you do a connection time out? I was thinking I start a thread and wait for it, then abort it after the timeout period expires, but was hoping there is a better way.

I get the adafruit max31855 working, next I have about 3 other SPI sensors I want to read from, and finally I want to use an lcd to display some of this information. I am out of pins. can anyone point me in the direction of a device or sample for handling a larger number of spi devices at once?

I am getting close to being ready to put my complete project together but I don't want a bunch of jumpers into my netduino or to have to use the 9V plug to power it, I want to solder connections directly to the board or have it plug into a header with all the pins through the button of the board. is it possible to get a netduino with out the power port soldered on and with out the headers so I can put my own in? if so where? What other options do I have?

I have made a circuit to detect water level. The circuit is from the datasheet for the LM1830. it drives an LED. What I am wondering is how do it convert this LED to an input on my Netduino? I am missing something very basic about electronics here I think.

I have attached an image of the sample circuit, and the full datasheet.

I just blew out my netduino making a stupid mistake and don't want to fry the next one.