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TRRS connectors are the audio-style connectors that you see on some phones, MP3 players and development boards. TRRS stands for "Tip, Ring, Ring, Sleeve," which reflects the fact that, unlike a standard stereo connector, this actually has three conductors and a ground. Some devices use the extra conductor for a microphone (like hands-free headsets) or to carry a video signal (like in some MP3/MP4 players). This breakout board makes it easy to add a TRRS jack to your prototype or project by breaking out each conductor to a standard 0.1" spaced header.
Most widgets could benefit from a shiny touchscreen interface. Unfortunately, it's usually not easy to hook up a touchscreen and driving a display is often too taxing on your controller. 4D Systems has solved this problem by creating a series of touchscreens with on-board controllers then combining them with adapters for popular platforms like Raspberry Pi and Arduino!
The Raspberry Pi Display Module Pack includes a uLCD-43-PT 4.3" LCD Display with Resistive Touch, a 4D Pi Adapter and 5 way interface cable. It customizes the uLCD-43-PT Display specifically for interfacing with the Raspberry Pi, to provide a quick and easy interface without any wiring hassles.
The RPi Display Kit lets you quickly connect the 4D Pi Adapter Shield to your Raspberry Pi, connect the 5 way cable between the Adapter and the Display Module, and be connected in seconds to start programming. There's even a comprehensive library written to communicate with the Raspberry Pi, allowing Visi-Genie (A serial-based interface design tool) events to be easily understood by the Raspberry Pi and user code.
This is an evaluation board for the Silicon Laboratories Si4703 FM tuner chip. Beyond being a simple FM radio, the Si4703 is also capable of detecting and processing both Radio Data Service (RDS) and Radio Broadcast Data Service (RBDS) information. The Si4703 even does a very good job of filtering and carrier detection. It also enables data such as the station ID and song name to be displayed to the user.
Using this board we are able to pick up multiple stations just as well as with a standard FM radio. The board breaks out all major pins and makes it easy to incorporate this great chip into your next radio project. Also, by plugging headphones into the 3.5mm audio jack, you effectively use the cable in your headphones as an antenna! Therefore, this board does not require an external antenna if using headphones or a 3.5mm audio cable longer than 3 feet.
Available soon!
If you aren’t familiar with the Electric Imp, it essentially provides an easy, integrated way to connect almost any hardware device both to other devices and to internet services. It’s more than just a WiFi card, or even a WiFi module with processing built in - it’s an integrated platform that deals with the drudgery of connectivity, allowing you to concentrate on the application instead of the mechanics. Of course, if you’re developing for it you’ll need a way to get in there and poke around. The Electric Imp Shield allows you to connect your Arduino project to the internet through your home WiFi network. This way, your Arduino can take advantage of the Imp Cloud service and connect to HTTP APIs.
The Shield connects one of the imp’s UARTs (Imp pins 5 and 7) to either the Arduino hardware UART or a software serial on pins 8 and 9. It defaults to the software serial, but there are jumpers on the bottom side to set it to the hardware serial. A couple imp pins (8 & 9) are also connected to LEDs. They can be disconnected via jumpers on the bottom, if you’d like.
Because the Electric Imp can draw up to 400mA on the 3.3V line, this shield has its own voltage regulator which is fed from the 5V Arduino line. Most Arduino compatible boards should be able to handle this amount of draw but beware that some clones that use less robust VREGs could see trouble.
Available soon!
The Arduino Ethernet Shield 2 allows an Arduino board to connect to the Internet. It is based on the Wiznet W5100 ethernet chip providing a network (IP) stack capable of both TCP and UDP. The Arduino Ethernet Shield 2 supports up to four simultaneous socket connections. Use the Ethernet library to write sketches which connect to the internet using the shield.
The ethernet shield connects to an Arduino board using long wire-wrap headers which extend through the shield. This keeps the pin layout intact and allows another shield to be stacked on top..
The latest revision of the shield adds a micro-SD card slot, which can be used to store files for serving over the network. It is compatible with the Arduino Duemilanove and Mega (using the Ethernet library coming in Arduino 0019). An SD card library is not yet included in the standard Arduino distribution, but the sdfatlib by Bill Greiman works well. See this tutorial from Adafruit Industries for instructions (thanks Limor!).
The latest revision of the shield also includes a reset controller, to ensure that the W5100 Ethernet module is properly reset on power-up. Previous revisions of the shield were not compatible with the Mega and need to be manually reset after power-up. The original revision of the shield contained a full-size SD card slot; this is not supported.
Arduino communicates with both the W5100 and SD card using the SPI bus (through the ICSP header). This is on digital pins 11, 12, and 13 on the Duemilanove and pins 50, 51, and 52 on the Mega. On both boards, pin 10 is used to select the W5100 and pin 4 for the SD card. These pins cannot be used for general i/o. On the Mega, the hardware SS pin, 53, is not used to select either the W5100 or the SD card, but it must be kept as an output or the SPI interface won’t work.
Note that because the W5100 and SD card share the SPI bus, only one can be active at a time. If you are using both peripherals in your program, this should be taken care of by the corresponding libraries. If you’re not using one of the peripherals in your program, however, you’ll need to explicitly deselect it. To do this with the SD card, set pin 4 as an output and write a high to it. For the W5100, set digital pin 10 as a high output.
The shield provides a standard RJ45 ethernet jack.
The reset button on the shield resets both the W5100 and the Arduino board.
Available soon!