TFT LCD Touchscreen Display

TFT LCD Screens are great.  They have really good resolution, they can be used as an input device and give you a lot of flexibility in terms of display.  The downside with the cheap chinese versions (like the one shown below), you can't turn the LCD backlight on and off.  So you either have to have it on completely or off completely.

I purchased this one on amazon, and it didn't come with any drivers or instructions, however reviews indicated (and I confirmed) that https://github.com/prenticedavid/MCUFRIEND_kbv this library will make it work.  It still took some tweaking.

Ethernet Shield

The ethernet shield by SunFounder is a very fast way to add hardline ethernet functionality to the arduino board.  The sketches are also fairly straight forward with a few gotchas to consider.

Motor Shield - Stepper Motor

Using the Motor Shield for controlling a stepper motor is about the same amount of effort as it would be to run it if you had a ULN2003, however, the wiring is a more tedious in this case since you have to run all 5 wires directly into the shield, rather than plug it into an adapter board.

Motor Shield - Servo

Using a servo with the Motor Shield is basically a pass-through. The main points primarily revolve around wiring.

Wiring

• Brown wire should be nearest to the corner of the shield when installed
• Digital pins (orange wire) are D9 and D10 on the arduino
• The row connected (shown above) is D10
• External power is not needed in the shield

Coding

• Use all the same example codes as you would for Servos without the shield.

Motor Shield - DC Motor

This entry focuses on using the Motor Shield with DC motors.

Adafruit MotorShield v2.3

The Adafruit MotorShield is a convenient way to control DC motors, Servos and Stepper motors.  Within a current limited capacity, one could run all three.

Upon purchase it is worth noting that you have to solder the stand off pins that connect the shield to the arduino.

After that, in the Arduino IDE, download the appropriate MotorShield library which has all the examples I'll reference for applications using this shield.