ElectroCookieProto Shield Kit Compatible with Arduino Mega R3, Stackable DIY Expansion Prototype PCB (2 Pack)

This board was so close to being great but it failed a few critical elements that are needed for an Arduino protoshield. The 5v and ground rails down the middle are nice, as are the numerous connected pads scattered over the board, but the SDA and SCL pinouts are treated as any other pins rather than giving them rails like the 5v and ground, so you still need another board to hook up multiple I2C add ons. The board also lacks a screw hole near the usb pad so a good half the board is unsecured if you need to mount tightly. Also, while some sections are connected by traces, the board seems to rely on the internal Arduino circuity to connect similar circuits like the power and ground. This is fine if you are mounting it strictly as a shield, but sucks if you're space constrained and trying to solder only the necessary connections.I wouldn't buy again, but I think I can make this work.

The PCB and most parts are OK, but the male/female headers have male pins that are too thin/small and only make intermittent contact into female headers on the arduino board so they are basically useless. I have to take them off and use the male/male headers because the pins are bigger but doing this will prevent stacking another shield on top of the protoboard.

I have been using ElectroCookie board for a long time and I am very pleased with them. This one is no exception and it has a great layout for Arduino Mega boards.

I ran into a similar issue as another reviewer. Because the male pins under the shield are thin, I ended up with some pins not making good contact. This resulted in "weird" behavior that took me a while to debug. Other than that the shield pcb itself is good.

Worked perfectly with my arduino mega.

Excellent value for the money.

Great Product

I don't know if mine slipped through quality control unnoticed. This is by far one of the worst prototype boards I have ever owned, tracks lifted, poor quality. One corner chipped and a crack in one board.

Wow. Six stars for design:- Connected pads, finally!- And the board itself has connections to the Arduino pinouts, so you don't need to connect external wires from the Arduino outputs to get them connected. HALLELUJAH. I have genuinely wondered why on earth no-one else seems to do this on shields.- And easy access to great plentiful and long GND and 5V tracks.- All pins incredibly well documented on the board itself - on both sides. Wow.This board finally answers my question "geez, why isn't anyone doing shields right??" - these guys are.Design is good, but so is execution: The plating made soldering the gazillion pin connectors very easy: it was as though the pads simply sucked up the solder all by itself... and I have seen no QC issues so far.The extra pins on the end are a nice touch. I can see why they did it: they needed space for pinouts of pins D22-27, but they made this design issue into an advantage by adding more connected pads and extra 5V/GND tracks..Several people mentioned thin pins. I have not seen this. If you do see it, I would think contact spray would help fix that. Someone else mentioned XDA and XCL not having a bus: true, but because of all the extra connected pins you can create your own easily enough, no?The only addition I would like is a few of the connected pads one more position further apart, so that I can more easily connect to breakout boards whose pins are four positions apart, rather than three (like my little logic level shifter board).This board is genius. I'll use them exclusively, going forward. I wonder, do these guys also make similar boards for the Arduino R3 and Arduino Nano?