Difference in ethernet shields???

Using Arduino General Electronics
1

I have seen a few ethernet shields 'in the wild'...

two have stood out to me..and I have no clue the difference.. and how it effects the end user (who dont know much) like me.

these types:
Sparkfun: (expensive!!)

&

which seems to state that are powered by the: "Wiznet W5100" chip..

and then I saw this: (which is half the price)..
"NEW ENC28J60 Ethernet Shield for Arduino UNO or Duemilanove with MicroSD"

and am wondering what is the difference in the ethernet chip set being used? and ow it affects us, the end users at all?

they both seems to have the newer/updated version with the SD card built in..

but only the RadioShack one claims to have P.O.E (Power Over Ethernet) capability?? the Sparkfun nor this 'odd-ball' one makes no claims of it?

thanks

2

Compared to the ENC28J60, the Wiznet chip has a TCP/IP stack built into the hardware. In that respect sketches written for the Wiznet will be smaller in memory than those written for the ENC28J60. The Wiznet is also capable of 100base-T.

The libraries used to interface with each chip are quite different.
Wiznet example: http://bildr.org/2011/06/arduino-ethernet-pin-control/
ENC28J60 example: http://www.nuelectronics.com/download/projects/etherShield_web_switch.pde

The official Arduino ethernet shield with the Wiznet chip does not include POE capability -- that is an additional purchase for the POE add on. Note that on the RadioShack page that "w/o" means "without". The reference documentation for the ethernet shield shows what the POE module looks like (third picture). I'm not sure where those modules can be purchased.

3

Note that the shields with POE usually have a warning that the associated arduino cannot be programmed with the shield installed.

4

DOH!.. (what a mis-read with the w/o) LOL..

anyways.. thanks for clarifying the differences for me.

Wiznet version for me.. =)

thanks!