Ethershield and Mega

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

Everywhere I look, it says that the Ethershield is not compatible with the Mega - anyone know why and what needs to be done to connect an Ethershield to a Mega? (If it's just physical then that's OK as I don't plan to mount it on the board anyway), but any advice appreciated,

Thanks!

2

The problem is that the official ethernet shield uses SPI on arduino pins 10-13, which is where the SPI hardware on a mega8/168/328 (i.e. non-MEGA) arduino is connected. The Arduino MEGA has the SPI hardware on different pins.

Someone (NKC electronics, IIRC) has an alternate ethernet shield that uses the same ethernet hardware and is software compatible with the official library, but uses the ICSP header for SPI connectivity. As a result it's compatible with both the MEGA and the standard arduinos.

-j

3

Thanks for that - so for my application where I'm using it as a board where it won't be a "shield" (ie. connected via flying leads) I'll probably be just fine, but I'll look for the other one too.

Cheers!