I am working on laying out a shield that has multiplexers that will allow for up to 48 analog inputs, digital inputs, or digital outputs (over 3 analog inputs and 4 control lines). It has a voltage and GND header for each of the 48 I/O headers. It will also have the usual shield items - reset, power and pin13 LEDs, and ICSP 6pin.
I wanted to get a feel for the interest in a shield like this before I get some made.
Please chime in, even with a simple 'yes, I could see myself purchasing' or 'no, I would never have a use for this'.
Does anyone know of an existing shield like this?
Does anyone have any suggestions for things to include on the shield? I've got extra board real estate...
Is anyone interested in getting a board free or cheap for testing?
Well my first impression is at what price point would this shield be competitive ($25-30 for Arduino 328 + this shield) Vs the Arduino Mega board ($50-65) which has pretty much the same magnitude of I/O pins plus additional serial ports, timers, interrupt pins etc. ?
Well my first impression is at what price point would this shield be competitive ($25-30 for Arduino 328 + this shield) Vs the Arduino Mega board ($50-65) which has pretty much the same magnitude of I/O pins plus additional serial ports, timers, interrupt pins etc. ?
It will be less (including a 328) than an Mega. It really isn't to compete with the Mega, but mainly to offer a bunch of analog inputs.
That was my first idea, since I just finished a project that required MUX's for 16 analog inputs... but since the MUX is input or output, and the analog pins on the arduino are also digital input/output pins... the features are upgraded automatically.
Maybe I would be better off marketing as such... "Analog Input Shield" to highlight this key feature?
I have been fishing through for old posts of projects that never seem to have materialized. I think that having a lot of analog inputs could be pretty useful.
I like it!! Analog in's are indeed scarce (6) even on the MEGA boards (12).
Just one question... I'm planning to buy a couple of these:
...But I was wondering..have you been able to find a 16-channel MUX in DIP form? I haven't been able to and I've come to believe that they don't exist...
Some more details would be nice...Board layout, multiplexer type, price etc.
I think it sounds interesting. However I need to know whether it fullfils my needs as well as the price. Including shipping .. I live in Argentina so getting stuff shipped is kind of a big deal...
I like the idea of it but I'd want to see some more details surrounding it, what does it look like, how do you talk to it, is there a provided library, what input pins will it take up on an existing arduino?
Here is a picture of one of the boards without the stackable headers.
I have finished building and testing a few (successfully) and I am now making some code examples... Within a few weeks these will be available on my website with example code and videos. The price has yet to be set, but it will be under $20.
Here are the stats:
48 analog inputs/digital inputs/digital outputs (in any combination)
Vcc and Ground headers (each input/output pin has a dedicated Vcc and Ground)
reset button
PIN 13 LED and Power LED
Stackable headers (plug directly into Arduino and add more shields on top)
Mega compatible
requires digital pins 2,3,4,5 and analog pins 0,1,2 - 48 inputs/outputs for the price of 7 pins!
Message me or post here if you would like to order one and I'll get you on the first run list.
Yeah, what mowicus said under $20 too I can see a big-ass midi controller being built......
quick question, any major reasom you stopped at at 48? Or more importantly do you have any plans to exploit the other 'free' pins and add another 48 pins
Another quick question, is it arduino Mega compatible? Can't see a reason why not....
It will be mega compatible because those pins are exactly the same on the mega
I doubt it would have been easy to add another 48 pins onto an arduino sized shield. It would be incredibly difficult/very time consuming to interface 96 pins in code, why would you want to?
Big audio project with potentiometers and lots of sliders/leds etc.
Mowcius has it... the original concept was 64 inputs, but to fit everything on the Arduino footprint the rows of Ground and Vdd would have to be sacrificed, and the price would have grown higher (the greatest expense in the design are the female headers). That being said, you could hypothetically utilize as many multiplexers as inputs...
Big audio project with potentiometers and lots of sliders/leds etc.
This is what I first built the design for, myself. I was designing an audio controller like unit. However the possibilities are nearly endless since it does input and output.
One concept I hope to try is controlling a bunch of LCD modules. It always bugged me that the arduino could only handle 1 or 2 LCD modules or i2c would have to be used, requiring more chips and a major speed bump. Maybe the Mux Shield will offer a good solution here too...
My intended project is a midi controller, hddj sytle with a couple of hdds, possibly trying to add motors to them to make them behave like a real turntable, a load of rotary encoders, faders, buttons etc.
One concept I hope to try is controlling a bunch of LCD modules. It always bugged me that the arduino could only handle 1 or 2 LCD modules or i2c would have to be used, requiring more chips and a major speed bump. Maybe the Mux Shield will offer a good solution here too...
The way I have done that is to use new soft serial to make a lot more serial ports, then use serial displays. Then you can have as many LCDs are there are pins.
32 a/d inputs and linkable to have i believe a max of 256 inputs
problem I'm running into is Pots always have a value and it is hard to switch between sessions without messing your preset values up. so I came up with a better solution using rotary encoders and I2c
I'm going to use encoders for that reason analog Pots are ok for certain things if they are hard coded and values remembered/saved or limitations accepted/worked around
With the pots You could read the value from your device into the arduino and then ignore any values read from the pot until you've matched its position to the value in your device. Use a switch/software to set/toggle the pot into 'match' mode or switch into 'match' mode and make it start sending midi data automatically once its matched the value.
