Hi, I wanted to announce a new Arduino shield now available. The EZ-Expander is a cheap and simple way to add digital output pins to your Arduino:
The EZ-Expander uses two shift registers to add 16 new pins (numbered 20-35). The shield uses 3 pins to operate so in total you get 13 additional pins. I've written a very easy-to-use Arduino library to access these pins in the same way you would access ordinary digital pins. You don't need to worry about the details of using shift registers to quickly use the new pins! It's as easy as:
EZExpander expander = new EZExpander();
expander.digitalWrite(20, HIGH);
Available as a kit for $12.95 or assembled/tested for $17.95. All the details are at EZ-Expander
Only a year ago, I had never heard of Arduino and I knew very little of electronics -- so be kind! I'd also love any feedback on getting the word out. In addition to selling it in my own store, I've also put this for sale on Makers Market http://nootropicdesign.makersmarket.com operated by Make Magazine.
Nice looking board, at nice prices, kit and assembled, I like.
One comment would be your choice of pin numbers 20-35. The Arduino Mega (and mega clones) use those same pin numbers for their expanded I/O pin numbers. I understand that there wouldn't be a software conflict but might confuse some anyway.
What I don't like about this shield is that it has to be on top if you have any other shields, because it doesn't bring up the other pins.
I thought about making it stackable, but to keep costs lower decided against the long-pin female headers. Also, if this shield was not on top, it wouldn't be very convenient to access the 16 new pins...
ISTM that you should make it bigger, which would give you room for more shift registers if you wanted to.
True. Again, I went for low cost and simplicity. I kept coming up a few pins short for my projects.
One comment would be your choice of pin numbers 20-35. The Arduino Mega (and mega clones) use those same pin numbers for their expanded I/O pin numbers. I understand that their wouldn't be a software conflict but might confuse some anyway.
I chose 20-35 just to continue on from the last pin (19) on the Duemilanove. It seemed the most logical choice (to me). If someone really didn't like that numbering scheme, they could change the software library easily enough. Not so easy to change the silkscreen, though! Thx for the feedback.
