Adding GPS to your Arduino has never been easier. Multiple GPS receivers attach easily to the shield, and with the example sketch (check below), you will be able to locate your exact position within a few meters. Here’s where we are. GPS also gives you amazingly accurate time!

A connector for the popular EM-406 GPS receiver is populated on the board, and footprints for EM-408 and EB-85A connectors are also made available (connectors are not included and can be found below in the related items). There is also a spot for the UP501 GPS module. The regular GPS pins (RX, TX, PPS, etc.) are also broken out to a 10-pin 0.1″ pitch header, and a small protoyping area is also provided.

The DLINE/UART switch switches the GPS module’s input/output between Arduino’s standard TX/RX pins or any digital pins on the Arduino (default setting uses pins 3 and 2 connected to TX and RX, respectively). The DLINE/UART switch must be set to DLINE in order to upload code through the Arduino IDE.

The shield also includes the footprint for a 12mm coin cell battery holder to provide battery backup to the optional EB-85A GPS module.An ON/OFF switch is included which controls power to the GPS module. Additionally, the Arduino reset switch is also brought out.

Note: GPS modules are not included with the GPS Shield, and only the EM-406 connector is populated. Headers are also not installed or included, we recommend the 6 and 8-pin stackable headers.

Features:

• EM-406 connector populated

• EM-408 and EB-85A connector footprints provided and connected for optional use

• UP501 connector and footprint

• Coin cell battery socket footprint provided and connected for optional battery backup of EB-85A GPS module

• Standard Arduino sized shield

• Prototyping area

• GPS serial and PPS signals broken out to a 0.1″ header for additional device connections

• Arduino reset button

• DLINE/UART switch controls serial communications

• ON/OFF switch controls power to GPS module

regards: www.sparkfun.com

Incoming search terms:

• gps shield android

SPOT is a service that makes adventures off the beaten path a little safer by providing a way to check in, send “I’m ok” messages or call for help via satellite. That’s all very useful if you’re going out into the wild beyond the reach of cellular and WiFi, but what if your Arduino is going and leaving you behind in civilization? Wouldn’t it be nice if it could take advantage of this technology to send you an e-mail or text message from the middle of nowhere?

This shield allows your Arduino to access the awesome satellite communication technology in the SPOT Connect module. Simply dismantle your SPOT Connect device and carefully pull it apart like an Oreo cookie, the remaining headers will mate with the headers on the SatUplink Shield allowing your Arduino to talk to the heavens and broadcast short text messages (41 characters) to and from almost anywhere!

regards: www.sparkfun.com

Incoming search terms:

• SatUplink Shield

The VoiceBox Shield can be mounted on top of your Arduino board to give it access to all of the capabilities of the SpeakJetvoice and sound synthesizer. The Voice Box Shield uses the SpeakJet chip to convert serial commands into a great robot-sounding voice.

Populated on the VoiceBox Shield are the SpeakJet IC, a two stage audio amplifier with a potentiometer to set the gain and a standard 3.5mm audio output jack. Simply connect a speaker to the output jack and get your Arduino-bot talking with very minimal work!

You can control the SpeakJet through either its serial line, or the eight event input lines which are connected to digital pins 5-12. A 3-way jumper allows you to connect either the software (D2) or hardware (D1) TX pin of the Arduino to the SpeakJet’s serial input.

Also included on the shield are a grid of 0.1″ pitch through-holes for prototyping as well as the Arduino’s reset button. Headers are not included, we recommend the 6 and 8-pin stackable headers.

regards : www.sparkfun.com

The Arduino Ethernet Shield 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 supports up to four simultaneous socket connections. Use the Ethernet library to write sketches which connect to the internet via a standard RJ45 Ethernet jack using the shield.

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 Uno and Mega (using the Ethernet library). You can access the on-board SD card slot using the SD library which is included in the current Arduino build.

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 reset button on the shield resets both the W5100 and the Arduino board.

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.

Regards: www.sparkfun.com

The Musical Instrument Shield is an easy way to add great sounding MIDI sound to your next Arduino project. This board is built around the VS1053 MP3 and MIDI codec IC, wired in MIDI mode. Simply connect a speaker/stereo/pair of headphones to the 1/8″ stereo jack on the shied and pass the proper serial commands to the IC and you’ll be playing music in no time!

The VS1053 contains two large tonebanks including various piano, woodwinds, brass, synth, SFX and percussion sounds. The shield is also capable of playing several tones simultaneously (maximum polyphony of up to 31 sounds!). Take a look at our example code to get an idea of how easy it is to add musical zest to your next Arduino gadget.

In this version, we’re using a better regulator, corrected the speaker connectors, and have the reset pin pulled high. We’ve also included solder jumpers for pin 3 and 4 so they’re selectable.

regards: www.sparkfun.com

         Gameduino is a game adapter for Arduino (or anything else with an SPI interface) built as a single shield that stacks up on top of the Arduino and has plugs for a VGA monitor and stereo speakers. The sound and graphics are definitely old-school, but thanks to the latest FPGA technology, the sprite capabilities are a step above those in machines from the past. The adapter is controlled via SPI read/write operations, and looks to the CPU like a 32Kbyte RAM. (Unlike many 8-bit machines, there are no restrictions on when you can access this RAM). There is even a handy reference poster (which you can download below) showing how the whole system works.

Features:

• Video output is 400×300 pixels in 512 colors

• All color processed internally at 15-bit precision

• Compatible with any standard VGA monitor (800×600 @ 72Hz)

• Background Graphics

◦ 512×512 pixel character background

◦ 256 characters, each with independent 4 color palette

◦ pixel-smooth X-Y wraparound scroll

• Foreground Graphics

◦ each sprite is 16×16 pixels with per-pixel transparency

◦ each sprite can use 256, 16 or 4 colors

◦ four-way rotate and flip

◦ 96 sprites per scan-line, 1536 texels per line

◦ pixel-perfect sprite collision detection

• Audio output is a stereo 12-bit frequency synthesizer

• 64 Independent Voices 10-8000 Hz

• Per-Voice Sine Wave or White Noise

• Sample Playback Channel

Regards: www.sparkfun.com