CLEARANCE

These were $3.75. Sales have not been satisfactory. They are now available in sets of three for $6/pack (only $2/ea), with further quantity discounts

What is it?

This is a prototyping shield for the Arduino Uno, Mega, Duemillenove and others that use the same shield layout. This uses the same sort of prototyping space that my other protoboards do, with predominantly through-hole prototyping area, with a few SMD footprints. The shield extends beyond the top and bottom edges of the Arduino board to provide more space for making connections to the Arduino pins, but does not extend over the USB and power connectors, so that they can't bump into each other when using stackable pin header. Holes are provided in line with those on the Arduino boards, so you can rigidly connect the shield to the Arduino if necessary.

Easy power and ground connections

Next to each row of Arduino pins is a nice big exposed ground trace, with as many through holes as I could fit: Finally, a prototyping shield with enough places to connect to ground! Additionally, Ground, 5v, 3.3v, and one uncommitted auxiliary trace are routed around to the corners of the board, so there's always a supply connection close at hand. The fourth "auxiliary" trace, marked AUX on the board can be used to distribute power from an additional voltage regulator, if your project needs one.

Easily use SMD components in your design

While most of us prefer working with through-hole components, sometimes the parts you need just aren't available in through-hole packages. This prototyping shield provides plenty of spaces for SMD prototyping, while still providing plenty of space for normal through-hole work. The SMD outlines provided are as follows; All outlines are connected to through-holes for ease of connection. Some of them share these through-hole connections with a nearby outline, as noted below:

• 1x SOIC-8 (top), 3x5 arrangement of exposed pads (similar size and spacing to 1206 resistors), with edges sharing connections with the SOIC-8 package (great for I2C pullup resistors and decoupling caps).
• 1x TSSOP-16 (bottom), SOIC-16 (top) - The most common packages for integrated circuits. The connections are shared, so you can only use one or the other.
• 2x SOT23-6 / 5050 LED (top, one shared with DFN-6) - The 5050 LED package in question is the 50mm x 50mm package used by many LEDs with 3 LEDs in one package - often used for RGB LEDs (though single-color ones exist). This outline is also suitable for WS2812 and WS2812B individually addressable LEDs (great for status/indicator lights when you're short on pins). SOT-23-6 is a common package used for light-duty power management ICs, as well as other parts that only require 6 pins, including some temperature sensors, and even some I2C EEPROMs. DFN-6 is a difficult to solder SMD package ("dense flat no-lead") - but it is still interesting because many of the best digital color and light sensing ICs (mostly from TEOS) are only available in this package.
• 6x 1206 (resistor, LED or capacitor) (top), 4x SOT-23 (bottom). The resistors can be placed either across, or sideways, between two adjacent pads on the same side. If you have MOSFETs on the bottom, you can use an SMD resistor on the top as the pulldown.
• 1x SOT-223 - for another voltage regulator. Whether you're powering servos, or feeding a power-hungry wireless adapter, all kinds of projects require another voltage regulator, and lots of great regulators are available in SOT-223 (I recommend the ZLDO1117 series - they're cheap, and have some of the lowest dropout and highest current capacity of the 1117-alikes, and work with all kinds of capacitors).