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[on:]

I prefer to build stand alone arduino's into my projects. I am working on something now using the ethernet sheild.

Rather than make my own board to fit the Ethernet shield, I have had the idea of using a cheap proto shield and building a minimal arduino on it, then plugging that into the ethernet controller.

has anyone tried this before? I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work?

[Reply #1 on:]

It will work. The Arduino board is just the Atmega328 plus various peripherals for easier connectivity to computer, voltage regulation, etc.

But instead of doing it on protoshield/stripboard, I suggest you just make a breadboard Arduino first (only requires about 5-6 parts), test it out with the Ethernet shield, then move your circuit to the stripboard.

Here is breadboard Arduino: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoToBreadboard

[Reply #2 on:]

The only issue I could think of it that the pins wouldn't line up at all so you would need to do a lot of routing to get it to connect right on the proto shield. Also on MY protoshield, the top sockets do not line up with the arduino. You will need to make sure that the top pins on one line up with the bottom pins on the other. They do line up on my ethernet shield, so the protoshield could go on top. But they're all different so you'll just want to be sure.

[Reply #3 on:]

Well if your going to interface to a shield based ethernet board anyway you might consider starting off with an arduino shield proto-board that would plug directly onto a shield board, such as this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/7914

I believe I've seen these much cheaper on E-bay from asian sellers, perhaps at $8 or so?

Lefty

[Reply #4 on:]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170804749706 - got a couple of those coming, for the price I thought it was worth a look good point about the orientation, looks like it will probably only fit on top of the shield with the current headers

I won't need all the pins of the uC to be connected to the headers, probably just the ethernet shields so it shouldn't be to bad and hopefully I can fit the rest of my circuit on the proto shield.

[Reply #5 on:]

Why don't you just buy a bare arduino pcb for $2 each?

http://imall.iteadstudio.com/open-pcb/bare-open-pcb/im121017006.html

You may decide to build it all the way or just add power barrel and supply to become standalone. With a proto shield, how do you intend to power the thing?!

[Reply #6 on:]

I wonder how much they are in the UK

I was just going to stick a 5v reg in the corner