Arduino Shields

ted7(58)

Published in

#utopian-io

Words

923

Reading

5 min

Listen

Play

Good day everyone!

Today we will be learning about arduino shields. You may have heard the word Arduino Shields by now as you are working with the Arduino, but do you know what it is? What it's capable of? And what's the use of it? Well, we both have the same thought when I first heard about it. I also thought it was just a shield that will protect the Arduino board from the harmful environment or from getting slashed by something sharp, because I thought it was an ordinary shield capable of deflecting and blocking enemies. It was really a very stupid idea, I know and I am ashamed of myself thinking it was that but now I know what it is, what it's capable of and what its for. So I wanna teach it to you guys through this tutorial, so that you would also know how awesome this kind of shield is. Let's get started!

What is Arduino Shield?

Arduino Shields or Shields are boards that can be plugged on top of the Arduino board, this will extend the Arduino's capabilities even further. When you want to start adding many cool pieces of technology to your Arduino board, like Bluetooth, WiFi, RF, motor driver, Infrared, Sonar, etc. it can be pretty complex, especially if you are still a noob in electronics and programming. But now that the shields are born, you can now add cool technologies into your project.

The shields can take all the complexity of the hardware and reduce it to a simple interface. This allows you to get your ideas up and running fast.

Arduino Shields also have their own programming language like the Arduino board has, these allows you to easily implement the hardware's features that are available on the shield.

Types of Arduino Shields

As of now, there are a lot of different type of shields available in the market. They each have their own unique capabilities, here are some examples of those shields:

LCD shields, LED matrix shields, wifi and bluetooth shields, motor shields, power supply shields, geiger counter shields, joystick shield, camera shield, gameduino shield and many more. They come in a different sizes and styles and features. Chances are if you need something, check the web first a shield exist to get you up and running quickly.

The shields are plugged right into the headers of the Arduino board. This so called headers are the black plastic rows of holes along the sides of the Arduino board. The shield has a long spiky pieces of metal which are called pins.

The shield has long spiky pieces of metal rods which are called pins, this pins will plug the Arduino board in its headers. This so called headers are the black plastic rows of holes that are along the sides of the Arduino board. The pins should be lined up with the header rows of the Arduino board and would fit perfectly.

_{Here is an example of an Arduino board and a GSM shield}

Criteria for buying an Arduino Shield

Now, there are some things that we need to consider first before buying those shields, because there are a lot of shield available in the market, that also means that there are a lot of scammers/fake that will scam you into buying their shield that is completely useless for your project. Here are the criteria for judging if the shield is worth your money:

Must have a good documentation

This is very important, because this is like the user manual for your shield. This talks about the do's and don'ts in how to use the shield correctly. It will be as good as a rock if you don't know how to use it.

Kits or Assembled?

We should be careful about this kind of stuff because many of the shields that are sold in the market are kits, this means that it is like a gundam kit that are not fully assembled. This will require you to solder the components, soldering can be easy but if you are still a newbie with handling the soldering iron it could prove to be a hassle and you can even ruin the shield if you are careless. You should contact the seller to be sure of what you are buying.

_{Motor Shield Kit}

Stackable or not Stackable

If you are planning to stack an Arduino Shield with another Arduino Shield, you must make sure that it is stackable. It must have pin headers on the top of the shield and they must be aligned so that you can easily plug another shield on top of it.
Also check the components on the shield, make sure that it does not stick up too high because it might hinder the other shield.

_{XBee Stackable Shield V2 for Arduino}

Same pinout

The older versions of the Arduino shields may not have the exact pins to fill the headers of the recent Arduino boards. This is because the older Arduino boards(like Arduino Uno) have fewer pins than the recent one. So, This type of shields were built for the previous version of Arduino Uno, though it is not really problematic if you don't have any need for those extra pins.

So, that is all for this tutorial. I hoped you found this tutorial helpful in some way.