Electronics-Salon Prototype Screw/Terminal Block Shield Board Kit for Arduino MEGA-2560 R3.

I use this board to connect to an Arduino mega when I want to prototype a project. It's a very convenient way to connect to the Mega in an early development stage, where you don't yet have whatever setup you might use for a late prototype or production version. It takes a minute to positively identify some of the terminals, but once accomplished, this board is a valuable tool for a test or prototyping bench.

This product was a fun product for me to use. I learned to solder using this product, and it worked perfectly.

Components are good. The pins on the headers are strong and straight. The packaging by the vender is excellent. The assembly of the screw headers requires a bit of dexterity and attention to detail. The screw headers slide into the adjacent unit to construct the green, long, straight and trustworthy line of screw clamping connectors. They slide/snap to their adjacent partners. There should be no gap between each unit. If there is a gap, then disassemble the joint by sliding them apart and try again. There are two types of green units: two pin and 3 pin units. Each of the three row that you assemble is composed of two of the 2 pin units and the an appropriate number of 3 pin units. Use care and you will have a solid device.

This is a very nicely done circuit board to provide a screw terminal interface for all of the pins on an Arduino Mega2560 microcontroller card. All of the pin identifications are clearly silkscreened on the PC board. The only drawback is that it alone costs 25% more than an Arduino card itself, but for me, the convenience of the screw terminal connections was worth the cost. Stacking headers are included to interface this board with the pin socket strips on the Mega2560, but I substituted regular male pin headers (they're easier to plug and unplug) since I wasn't going to stack another shield on top of this board. There is a provision to mount a pushbuton reset switch on this board, which is a good idea since the reset button on the Mega2560 is inaccessible when this board is installed.A couple of warnings: Assembly of this board involves a lot (172 to be exact) of soldered connections and vertical alignment of the pintails is critical to being able to plug it into the Mega2560, so be prepared for that. Also you need to add insulating tape to the top of the USB connector on the Mega2560 to prevent shorting against the pads on the bottom of this board.

Board does NOT come soldered; this annoyed me at first but it's $17 and solders easily. Pay attention to the screw terminals; they come in blocks of 2 and 3 and snap together but if you're like me and don't lay them all out first, you might end up with a 3-terminal block and a 2-terminal space left :) I bought this board with a package of headers from another vendor; the 6-pin passthrough block others reference did not come with this package but I did get a 6-pin block with the other vendor's package BUT the height of the block was not sufficient for the Ethernet shield to make contact. Take note of this if you need to put an Ethernet shield (or anything with the 6-pin block on it) over this. Easy to fix if you plan ahead.

The boards were well packaged. Shipped on time. I have built out two boards already and soldering on them was absolutely great. Stayed on the rings perfectly and held up to the heat of the gun. I will be purchasing many more. the best yet for me.

I cant speak for the board quality however the parts are basically identical to other kits you can buy for half, and less than half the price. Ali has them for 3 bucks a kit. I guess i was hoping for super quality here but didn't appear so.

First, in the fine print you will surprisingly find out that this a collection of parts that need to be soldered together (about 160 places). The picture is misleading and leads the buyer to think it's already assembled. Two, the screw connectors are not drop in and solder; they need to be pinched together (with difficulty) in a vice to make them fit. Three, the shipment was three connectors short of what was needed. Four, a reset switch was not included. I would have returned this mess, but was time constrained and had to get by with what was there.