I bought one of these and I really hated it. This board was designed to be the top board in the stack. None of the IO pins were brought to the interior of the board, so that you could solder to it. I got one of these http://www.nkcelectronics.com/megashield-kit.html and have been happy ever since.

Hello Mega Users,
I am working on a revision of this shield right now. I'm increasing the annular ring size across the board. I was wondering... would any of you find it useful to have a 3.3V bus? Is the 5V bus useful? I was also wondering if having more buses near the Analog inputs would be useful. Maybe I've been listing to too much of the Who http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl9bvuAV-Ao Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! - Pete

I love the stuff you guys at Sparkfun do but as other have mentioned, this board needs a bunch of improvements. As far as I can tell the 5v bus is not connected to 5v. All the pins should be brought to a via on the board we can solder too. The space over the USB jack needs to be cut our or not have holes so it does not get used.

Please, made us a new board that is better than the old one.

What good is a prototyping board that doesn't connect the prototyping area to the computer you're connecting to? Are we supposed to run wires from the top of the header connectors into the prototyping area? Note to SparkFun - this board is no fun.

WARNING: v1.3 of the eagle files have a connection error. J9 is incorrectly wired in library part. Highlighting, D22 in schematic shows D52 on the board. D24->D50, D26-D48, etc. Won't hurt the prototypers but using this lib part on your boards will make coasters. Cost me $200. Its just the old 'Gotch ya' of using someone else's part without checking every pin, my fault.

Comes with all 8 pin headers. You'll need 2 six pin headers and 2 2 pin headers. Good luck cutting the eight pin headers - these headers were never meant to be cut. This is really unacceptable.

I don't know about the annular ring size since I just got this kit and haven't soldered it yet. And I haven't used it yet, so can't render an opinion about the power buses.
But here are a few other comments on the kit:
1. LEDs: I don't know that the bright ones are really necessary, nor do they need to be 5mm. The smaller 3mm basic ones, like in the SFE store, would be just fine, I think.
Furthermore, I know it's very minor, but with the clear LEDs, you have to actually plug them in first to figure out which one is green and which is red.
2. Parts list: I think there is an error in the parts list for the connectors on the web page.
Doesn't the shield require 9 of the 8-pin female headers and 1 of the 6-pin female headers? The description says 11 and 1. (My kit was missing the 6-pin, by the way.)
Shouldn't there also be two 2-pin headers included as well, for the two ground and two +5V pins along the edge of the board (at the ends of the digital pins)? The main photo of the shield on the site shows them in place, but they aren't in the parts list (nor were they in my kit).
[cont...]

You should really fix the schematic because the one header is wrong way around.

Anybody using this be aware that pins from 22 to 52 are actually 52 to 22. Barely noticed it myself.

Woe is me. Why didn't I read other comments and take them to heart. This board is poorly designed, and in my case, my Arduino Mega 2560 R3 won't even function when it's connected.

yeah -- DO NOT BUY THIS SHIELD. it's terrible, and tbh, a bit crappy that you are still selling it after three years of complaints.

the IO pins need to have double holes so you can actually CONNECT TO THEM. seriously, it's such an obvious thing it is hard to imagine it wasn't done in the first pass FOUR YEARS AGO. also, it's way too expensive.

i'm buying Funduinos (MEGA 2560's, $15) and shields for $5 that are far, far better, from China. I really want to support hobbiest-friendly business, and i am willing (and do) pay more for the privilege,l but sheesh, the stuff has to work.

all shields have some frustration or other (they're all compromises) so "only top board" and lack of cutout over USB etc dont bother me much. but the basics need to be present at least.

sorry to gripe but this product is terrible and should be withdrawn.

Two comments: * You should make this more like the Arduino protoshield (bring put all I/o pins and have general button and LED footprints) * you should sell the bare pcb after you have done that

None of the IO pins are connected to pads at the interior of the board. This makes soldering it more tedious and improvised than it would need to be. The 5v and GND bus are useful, but they would be more useful if they were positioned differently. Please re-design this board. Also, smaller LEDs would make it more aesthetically pleasing.

Isn't it really abount time these kits can with 2x 10 way header 7x 8 way header 1x 6 way header That way there would be no need to cut up the supplied 11x 8 way headers to make up the board

I used the eagle files of this shield for the base of a PCB shield and please note that there is a mistake. JP5 is correct in the schematic but flipped in the PCB version. You can see that pin one is on the left for JP5 where it should be on the right. This caused me a few hours of frustration so I hope that this helps you out or the schematic is changed!

According to the Eagle file (and the above pictures), the hole closest to the power jack location is out of position by 0.05" for use with either the Mega or the Due. It should be moved toward the power jack to correct the issue.

Will this shield work with the new Arduino Due?

I'm confused. The MegaShield is extended all the way over the usb connector, apparently to provide a few extra empty holes. But the USB connector is significantly higher than the female headers on the Mega. As it is, if I put the shield on top of the Mega there will be a gap between the shield and the headers on the Mega. This dramatically increases the chance of a wire clipping causing a short or pressure on the board causing something to snap.

This seems like a terrible design decision given that removing 4 rows of blank holes would eliminate this issue. Has anyone tried cutting off the last 4 rows of holes (which would also remove the LEDs, but I assume they are non essential) to allow the board to sit flat?

In addition to the other comments (extremely bright LEDs, board must be top of the stack, etc.) there is another significant problem, the 5V bus trace extends out over the grounded metal USB connector housing (check the image above). If you are not extremely careful you can very easily short the 5V shield trace to ground here. Put a piece of electrical tape on top of the USB connector! I hope sparkfun does a re-design on this one.

This item is a shame, holes are not aligned, there is no big digital connector and you have to build one from small ones
obviously it's almost impossible to get a correct alignment.
I usually got nice product from spakfun, what happened to this item ?

What were you guys thinking, drinking or smoking when you designed this?
You cant use stackable headers with it!
If it was meant to be used with a breadboard you sould have left the whole thing blank!
Sorry, I love your work, but this is crap!
And I bought 2!!!!!
Have a look at the DF Robot version, that's how it should be done!!

Are the connections from the Arduino Mega brought out to PCB holes? In other words, if I need to connect, for example, a digital input to a spot in the protoboard, can I just run a wire from one PCB hole to another or do I have to have a wire coming from the female header?
Also, will I have any issues using this with another shield on top?
Thanks!

Is there any good reason why the header holes centers are not all in the same line ?
Regards
Jorge

The LEDs in this kit are WAY too bright! I got blinded by them every time I powered my Arduino on. So I replaced them with some other ones I had. Also, I noticed that the +5volt bus can be touching the metal casing of the USB jack. I am not quite sure if that would cause some damage, but I insulated it with some tape just in case. This works great with a little breadboard for quick prototyping.

why are the led so bright?

I'm guessing that you're supposed to cut two segments off of two of the pieces to make a piece with six segments and two pieces with two segments.

Additionally, the Eagle files will not unzip...

Don't need the ICSP unless reflashing the bootloader. A ten pin JTAG connector would be excellent. For serious debugging, the Aurdino IDE doesn't cut it. ( While your'e at it how about a JTAG ICE MKII clone. My JTAG ICE MKI won't work with the mega1280. The electrical is the same for all other JTAGs; something fishy that JTAG ICE MK1 won't work ).
No on the 3.3. With only 30mA, there is not much that it can be used for except an acel or gyro...unless you add a 500mA 3.3 LDO regulator. I have to use an auxillary 5vto3.3 board for my 3.3v XBEE module. No on the analog bus, but yes on power and ground bus along the PWM, and run them all the way along the "communication" pins too.( in servo pinout of course). Thanks.

Another minor thing to note, and ask about.
There is no through-hole on the board right under the SparkFun logo, nor are there any in the last row where "sparkfun.com" is screened on the top. This means you can not use an 8-pin header in either of the last two rows, which would be handy for an off-board connector.
It seems you could put the holes there and move the logo to the reverse side to make it more useful.
.andy

One last thing about instructions:
Another warning about soldering the LEDs in the correct orientation is probably even more important than the one about the resistors. Resistors are symmetrical, so it doesn't matter which way you insert them, but LEDs are not!
People not familiar with the schematic symbology won't know about which side of the LED illustration on the board represents the cathode and which is the anode, and whether the short or long lead is anode or cathode.
This really should be noted in instructions!
.andy

[...cont]
3. Instructions: I know your product page clearly says that you don't ship assembly instructions, but I think a simple note with some basic pointers in it would be useful. Here are some examples:
- Figure out which is the red LED and solder it on the board in the spot marked POWER. Figure out which is the green LED and solder it in the STAT spot.
- Check the resistors carefully! One is 10K ohm and the other two are 330 ohm. The slots on the board are marked correspondingly. Be sure to match the resistors with the right slot when you solder them on the board.
I wouldn't underestimate the value of very simple instructions or tutorials. They go a long way towards helping people get going with the technology. (I can read a schematic, but I bet not all early users of these tools can.) ladyada, for example, has done an excellent job of making useful instructions.
I DO like your taste in musical inspiration!
Thanks.
.andy