Product Review

Using only two I2C pins, control 16 free-running PWM outputs! You can even stack up 62 shields to control up to 992 PWM outputs (which we would really like to see since it would be glorious and like 4 feet tall) Because I2C is a shared bus you can also connect other I2C devices and sensors to the SCL/SDA pins as long as their addresses don't conflict (this shield has address 0x40) There's an I2C-controlled PWM driver with a built in clock. That means that, unlike the TLC5940 family, you do not need to continuously send it signal tying up your microcontroller, its completely free running! It is 5V compliant, which means you can control it from a 3.3V Arduino and still safely drive up to 6V outputs (this is good for when you want to control white or blue LEDs with 3.4+ forward voltages) 6 address select pins so you can stack up to 62 of these on a single i2c bus, a total of 992 outputs - that's a lot of servos or LEDs 3 pin connectors in groups of 4 so you can plug in 16 servos at once (Servo plugs are slightly wider than 0.1" so you can only stack 4 next to each other on 0.1" header Stackable design. You'll need to pick up stacking headers and right angle 3x4 headers in order to stack on top of this shield without the servo connections getting in the way. A spot to place a big capacitor on the V+ line (in case you need it) 220 ohm series resistors on all the output lines to protect them, and to make driving LEDs trivial A lot of extra space remaining? Let's turn it into a prototyping area. You get a 5x20 proto area for any extra wiring you'd like to add This product comes with a fully tested and assembled shield as well as 4 pieces of 3x4 male straight header (for servo/LED plugs), a 2-pin terminal block (for power) and a stick of 0.1" header so you can plug into an Arduino. A little light soldering will be required to assemble and customize the board by attaching the desired headers but it is a 15 minute task that even a beginner can do.