I just want to confirm my understanding that if I use a pHat stacker to connect 2 x Explorer pHats then I can control / address 8 analog sensors and 4 DC motors simultaneously?
… or would I get conflicts from using 2 of the same pHats? How would I address each of them differently using the library that comes with the explorer pHat?
Won’t work, you will have a bunch of pin conflicts.
Explorer pHAT at Raspberry Pi GPIO Pinout
The i2c bus is a shared bus and can handle multiple devices, as long as no two devices have the same address. But your two pHats will both be trying to use that same 0x48: for the ads1015.
You can get around that with some devices. If you look at the Breakout Garden i2c breakouts, a lot of them have an address change jumper. I cut that on one BME280 so I could use two BME280’s. I did have to edit my code to keep track of two BME280’s. That’s not an option for you. and even if you could, you would still have a bunch of other pin conflicts with the motor control etc.
You could maybe add individual i2c breakout the equivalent of the Explorer pHat.
2 x DRV8830 DC Motor Driver Breakout – Pimoroni One with the address jumper cut
1 x ADS1015 +/-24V ADC breakout – Pimoroni WITH THE ADDRESS JUMPER CUT!! It would get you three more ADC channels.
Mount them on this ProtoZero – Pimoroni and then plug it into the pHat Stack. Or get the breakout garden Hat or Mini i2c.
Breakout Garden Mini (I2C) – Pimoroni