I wanted to make the community aware of a Kickstarter campaign that I recently launched for an Arduino shield. The Extended DAC Shield is a high-speed, high-precision, eight channel, -10V to +10V analog output shield for the Arduino. The design will be open source with schematic, layout, and source code freely available.
If you have any questions about the shield or campaign feel free to ask them here. Please help me raise the funds necessary to make this awesome shield a reality!
If i wanted to test something at home, playing around with the arduino i surley would use it instead of making my own circuit since i never seem to get the time to make my own circuit
At work i use 4-20mA circuits for measuring and monitoring.
0-10v is not so common in as input signals due to cable lengths and environmental factors, 4-20mA seems to be safer in monitoring.
For controlling 0-10v is more common and has a wide range of products just waiting to be controlled
-10v for controlling i havent encountered very much but some frequency drives use it.
I already have my Bus-Master board going to the board shops this week that uses a Nano and can receive as many as 48 channels of 4-20 mA. It has an RS-485 and is plug compatible with the Adafruit ADS1115. I have also designed a 4-20 mA output plug in and a 0 to 10KHz frequency input module. Each module handles 4 channels with a maximum of 12 modules. If more are needed you just add another Bus-Master via RS-485. Calibration data and Range data are stored in EEProm.
I have a loader program, a reader program and an operations program along with a front end that runs in a windows environment and currently can plot up to 48 channels. More modules are currently in the works such as voltage input and output modules, PWM and Thermo-couple modules. The Bus-Master is about 12x5 inches and uses Wago spring type connections.
