Arduino Expansion Shields And Modules

Each arduino board that we will use has at the end fix set of functionalities, and of course we can’t change it. Now based on some project’s requirements maybe more options than we have in our board will be needed. So we can decide to maybe purchase different arduino board with more options. However it is more common to use two types of expansion. One is called "shield" and the other one is called "module" or "breakboard"

Let's start from the first one so, arduino shields are boards that can be plugged on top of the arduino board extending its capabilities. Now they are of course limited to specific boards, because the pins needs to match to each other. We will see it in the next picture still the positive side is that we don’t need external wires to connect between them between the shield expansion board and the original arduino board.

Read More: Everything You Need To Know About Arduino

In addition, for each arduino shield we will have a set of pre-defined functions under what is called "library" that will help us to easily use it. Let’s see some very common example. This specific arduino shield allows us to connect our arduino uno or mega 2650 to the network or the internet and also retrieve or store files on a micro sd card

It simply pluged on top the headers that already exist on the arduino board and we can stack additional shields on top of it. So at the end, no soldering or wiring is required to connect between them and that's all, we need to connect a network cable to the expansion shield

We have rj45 connector for that and that's all and the shield we get the power directly from the arduino power supply. We are going to use this ethernet shield in one of our the next course levels as this is a little bit more advanced feature. Another widely used option to extend the capability of our arduino board is to use modules or breakout boards. As you know many electronic companies are producing small integrated circuits that are looking like computer chip that can perform specific task.

Now usually it is not so easily to connect and interface with such ics, because thier size is small and they requires also additional components to operate. So the idea of a breakboard is that it “breaks out” such small pins into a printed circuit board. That has its own pins that are spaced perfectly for connecting external wires and giving us much. Easy access to use the integrated circuit and of course putting any needed external component beside the ic around it.

Read More: Everything You Need To Know About Arduino

So everything is packed in a small form factor printed board and we just need to interface with an external connectors. Now believe it or not we will use it allot, this is for example a microphone help us to sense sound and connect it as a sensor to our arduino device.

There all kind of arduino shields, we just saw the ethernet shield, there is also wifi, dc drive motor and so on and also there are so many types of modules or breakout boards that we can use, they are great electronic building blocks, and you should learn to use them.

Take for example your android phone, do you really think that one manufacture is creating the all components in that phone device. No they are using integrated circuits that are coming from many manufactures, as use that is building blocks. Now in our examples we can see her bluetooth module, gps, ultrasonic distance sensor, pressure sensor, led/lcd and 3xmore.

Read More: Everything You Need To Know About Arduino

Now since the pin-out of a breakout board is not specifically designed to some specific arduino headers. It means that we can use a breakout board with any other microcontroller development board. Whatever we want, which gives them a bit more useable options than the arduino shields. Also you can guess that in most cases we will be able to find a breakout board that does the same thing as a dedicated shield. So at the end it is up to us to decide which way we would like to go maybe also this is a price issue, maybe the module will be cheaper than the shield. So this is also something to consider.