Shield Already Taking up 5v and GND pins

Using Arduino General Electronics
1

I'm not sure where to put this, as I guess it falls under hardware and connections.
I'm a total newbie when it comes to electronics and trying to do a project for university which is tied into work I'm doing for a company (This company has very little programming and arduino knowledge).

In such project I am using a resistive touchscreen in order to control a motor to get it to chase a target value. I've written all that code with PID control and such works without the touchscreen. However I want to add an interactive element where the target can be controlled by the operator. Before you go and tell me a POT or something else would be much better a touch screen has to be used.

I've up until this point been using the 3.9inch LCD wiki touch screen and have had an incredibly hard time working with the libraries and getting the touch to actually work. And any searching for people using said equipment hasn't come up with anything. However I saw a great video that uses a different screen + shield and the URtouch libraries that made much more sense when I watched it.

Now I've decided to use that screen and shield combination, and now I've come into the problem with that particular shield uses every one of the pins on the power header of the mega, so both grounds, vin, 5v and 3.3v. Now this has left me in a situation where I'm a little bit stumped with what to do, since I've been running the encoder on the motor and the pololu qik off the 5v and GND pins of the mega.

How do I go about powering these now? My biggest fear is simply soldering them to the the back of the mega or the shield as my soldering skills are quite lacking.

I know the digital I/O pins can be used as a 5volt output by setting the pin as high, but they can only take a maximum of 50mA.

Now the only solutions I can think of is using an additional 5v power supply and connect it to the breadboard. Or to simply connect the shield to the mega using jumper wires where I can splice the 5v and ground.

I'm very unsure what to do or what should be done, so any help / suggestions or even tutorials in regards to something like this will be greatly appreciated.

2

Hi, Welcome.

You do NOT want to try and power anything from a I/O pin.

So the issue seems to be purely a mechanical one. Can you post a photo?

For many folks simply soldering some wires somewhere would work so I should ask is this a possible solution for you.
Also a link to your shield would be helpful.

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The Sheild is this

Yes its a physical problem, above is the shield for the tft I've ordered. I don't have it with me yet to take a picture of it, I'm just trying to think ahead so I can prepare. I mean worse case scenario I could always use a 5v power supply and hook it up to the breadboard.

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Photos will be useful, also links to the exact parts you are using.

From a mechanical point of view my first thought would be to make an "intermediate" shield to sit above the mega, using some stripboard, and expose all the connections so you can attach supplies and also to provide test points.

5

Stacking headers? Perhaps an intermediate prototype shield with stacking headers is the answer. It worth practicing your soldering skills on old junk boards BTW, once you feel confident doing that lots of possibilities will open up.

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