Hello,
New member here, first post, hoping I'm not upsetting anyone.
I've bought an ethernet shield from NKC Electronics, it's said to be an offical Arduino ethernet shield and I have no reason to doubt that. Problem is that it does not look like the one shown here nor does the schematic available for download on the same page match the one I've got. I'm quite sure it's the new v6 of the shield I've got and NKC electronics says that pretty much the only difference is that a capacitor and resistor in the reset-circuit have been removed on v6. I don't think that's the whole story since there, for example, is no 74 series IC on the board. Also, looking at the board I can't seem to get the pinout to match the schematic of v5.
I've read a couple of posts/threads here regarding this but unfortunately it didn't make me much wiser. I'm sure I can figure/trace it out but I'm going to ask if anyone has been able to "extract" any official documentation from the Arduino team regarding this version of the shield.
Finally, in the spirit of openness and full disclosure I'll add that I'm not an Arduino user and I'll not be using the shield with an Arduino. That, however, makes the need for a current schematic even more important for me even if this version is "firmware compatible" with older versions.
TIA
/Henrik.
Not sure what kind of "pinout" you're looking for, but the usage of pins in the shield headers hasn't changed -- it can't, or it wouldn't be compatible with the software library for arduino. I know you're not using that, but the fact that no changes were necessary in the arduino software, as far as I can tell, must mean that the interface provided to the board and controller haven't changed. And of course, the pinout of the RJ-45 hasn't changed either.
You do understand that without the arduino underneath it, most of those header pins have no meaning, right? They are mostly pass-through from the processor board...
Hi,
Thank you for your reply.
I realise that the pinout of the actual SPI interface must be the same since the Ethernet library is working, I also realise that most pins are "free" but which... For example, on the V5 schematic there's a LED designated 'L' connected to Pin13. This is not so on the board I have where it instead seems to connect to the SCK pin on the ICSP header (perhaps some other place else as well). On the V5 schematic there are lines for Write protect and Detect of the SD-card connected to A0 and A1 respectively, this again seems not to be the case the board I have - I'm guessing because the micro SD slot/holder doesn't provide those signals (I need to investigate microSD further).
I'll be using it with the AmiPIC18 board which is "like" an Arduino but based on a Microchip PIC. To make that work I have to do some surgery to the Ethernet shield in order to move the SPI signals from the ICSP header to the I/O pins where the AmiPIC18 has its SPI interface. This happens to be on Pins 2,3 and 4 but pins 2 & 4 is "taken" by the W5100 interrupt signal and the SD-card chip select signal respectively so I'll have to "move" those signals to some other pins so that I can attach the shields SPI interface signals there instead. This whole process would be easier if the board I had matched the schematic I had so I could see what actually goes where.
But like I said, I can figure it out anyway. In fact, now I almost have... 
Thanks!
/Henrik.
Sorry I don't personally have more concrete information for you. I doubt the following will satisfy, but I'll pass it along. I believe that what's documented in the pin usage notes must still apply, because the arduino libraries rely on it. There's nothing in them that's aware of the hardware rev of the shield.
http://shieldlist.org/arduino/ethernet-v5
hi henrols
The board is just using the SPI pins, pin 10 and 4 if you are using an arduino mega you cant use the pins 50,51,52,53( I dont know where those pins are on the uno...) and pin 10 and 4 those two are for selecting either the sdcard or the ethernet connector.
hth
rahd
Thank you both!
The shield is now modified to have the signals where I need them - one cut trace and 5 jumpers, we'll see if it works...
Hopefully the documentation will be published soon.
/Henrik.