What is it?

It's an Arduino Nano shield. Arduino can be used as an ISP programmer. Arduino IDE comes with Arduino ISP sketch, that allows you to use Arduino to upload sketches or bootloaders to ATMega and ATTiny chips via ICSP header. This shield provides additional functionality. It has tri-state buffer connected between Arduino and the device you are programming to protect the Arduino. It also allows to use a different voltage. Using a switch, you can select between 5V, 3.3V, 2.7V or external to power the device you are programming. Four different colored LEDs are used to indicate the selected voltage.

It has four additional status LEDs.

• PROG - is lit while the programmer is programming
• DATA - indicates state of MISO pin, it flashes during programming, you can also flash it from running sketch, it's a handy debug LED
• ERR - indicates something went wrong during programming
• HB - heartbeat, indicates the Arduino ISP Sketch is running and is ready.

It has both male and female ICSP header. Male header can be used with 6 pin cable. (Cable not included). Female header can be plugged directly into ICSP header without need for the cable. The Arduino ISP doesn't have 64k limit like tinyISP programmers and can be used to program AVR chips with 128k and more EPROM. Arduino not included.

How to use it?

• First upload Arduino ISP sketch into your Arduino Nano while the shield is not connected
• Plug the Arduino Nano into the shield, make sure it's facing the right way. Side with USB port is marked.
• Select desired output voltage
• Plug the shield into the device you want to program using female header, or use 6 pin cable and male header
• From Arduino IDE, select use Arduino ISP as a programmer and upload the sketch using programmer (Ctrl+Shift+U)

If you do have a programmer but just need ICSP level shifter with 3.3V and 2.7V regulator get one here.