



Product Description

The PTSolns Interface-Shield is a shield designed to interface the user with their project employing an Uno microcontroller development board or any other similar board. The Interface-Shield offers a range of features such as programmable buttons and LEDs, hardware and software debouncing filters, configurable addresses, dimmable LCD backlight (onboard potentiometer and PWM pin), interrupt, and much more.
The Interface-Shield communicates with the microcontroller via the I2C bus, and therefore allows the user to fully utilize all the digital and analog pins of the microcontroller, as none are occupied by the LCD. Signal quality is important whenever working with I2C. Therefore, the shield offers slotted large copper pads designed to connect the probes of an oscilloscope in order to view the I2C bus signals.
NOTE: For tutorials and example sketches using the Interface-Shield, please install the custom library in Arduino IDE called “PTSolns_InterfaceShield”, or visit the GitHub website and search for "PTSolns_InterfaceShield".
This product, along with all of the PTSolns products, comes with a detailed datasheet, and other supporting material. Please view our "PTSolns Documentation Repository”" to access these documents.
Shield-Series
This product is part of the Shield-Series. All the members of this series include:
-
Proto-Shield
-
NRF-Shield
- Interface-Shield (this product page)
- RTC MicroSD Shield
Interface with your Projects

The Interface-Shield is not just an LCD shield, it is much more than that! To interface with your project mean you don't just receive data from it, but also input data to it. This is easily done with the four programmable buttons. Since this Uno shield uses stacking headers, all of the pins of the Uno microcontroller development board are available for input and output.
But there is more ... besides the four programmable LEDs and the contrast and LED backlight brightness control, there are also large SDA and SCL (I2C bus) pads on the PCB. This comes in handy when trying to scope the quality of the I2C bus with an oscilloscope! Simply connect the SDA and SCL prongs and set up the scope to view the signals.
Features of the Interface-Shield

The following features are explained in detail in the datasheet, which can be from our "PTSolns Documentation Repository".
- Compatibility: PTSolns Uno R3+, Arduino Uno R4, Uno R3 (THT or SMD versions), Mega 2560 R3, Leonardo, any other similar microcontroller with 5V logic and same pinout.
- I2C and shield address: Shield communicates on I2C bus. Eight (8) configurable shield addresses.
- Programmable buttons and LEDs: Four (4) buttons and four (4) LEDs (red) that are entirely programmable.
- Microcontroller pin access: The Interface-Shield uses stacking female headers and therefore all of the underlying microcontroller pins are available at the upper level.
- LCD backlight: The LCD backlight can be controlled via A) onboard potentiometer, or B) via pin D9 on microcontroller.
- LCD contrast: The LCD character contrast can be adjusted via the onboard potentiometer.
- Interrupt: Send interrupt signal to pin D2 on microcontroller.
- Power LED: Onboard power LED (red) illuminates whenever the Interface-Shield is powered.
- Oscilloscope I2C connection pads: Slotted large copper pads that can be used to connect oscilloscope probes to the I2C bus.
Package Contents
- 1x PTSolns Interface-Shield PCB
- 1x 1X6 pin, 2x 1X8 pin, 1x 1X10 stacking female headers
- 3x 2-pin jumper caps (colour may vary)
NOTE: Assembly required
Other Names
- Interface-Shield
- Interface Shield
- LCD Shield
- PTS-00156-111
- PTS-00156-211