I seem to be having a problem with power consumption. I have an arduino working with the shield, however the problem is that it can barely drive an LED.
Without the shield, the arduino can drive the LED (connected to pin 8) at full brightness, with the digitalWrite(8, HIGH); command.
However, if I were to connect the shield, the LED is so dim, that it is barely visible in the dark!
I tried this with both USB power and an external PSU (6V 300mA), and no result. The LED is still very very dim.
The 6V PSU I can understand -- 6V is too low for an Arduino as it needs at least 7V to overcome the voltage regulator's dropout voltage and the external voltage protection diode. I don't so much understand not working from USB power, unless you have a computer that doesn't provide enough current at the USB ports (they do exist).
The first thing I would try is a 7V or higher PSU (try to stay below 12V) with at least 300mA.
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The Gadget Shield: accelerometer, RGB LED, IR transmit/receive, speaker, microphone, light sensor, potentiometer, pushbuttons
Awesome! You are right!
Thanks a bunch, it seems that my USB was one of those low-power ones, I switched to my desktop's USB3 port, and had no problems!