Add Indicator Lights and Diagnostic Pins to the Arduino Uno with DeDe

Arduino boards — specifically the Uno — have made prototyping your invention easy and inexpensive. On the other hand, one thing they don’t…

Jeremy Cook
6 years ago

Arduino boards — specifically the Uno — have made prototyping your invention easy and inexpensive. On the other hand, one thing they don’t have is a visual indicator as to which pins are high and low (0 or 1). Naturally, this would be excellent for troubleshooting, so Bill Brown has come a solution as DeDe, or the “DEbug & DEvelopment” shield for the Arduino Uno and compatibles.

DeDe, now on Kickstarter, features 24 pairs of indicator lights, with green for high and red for low. This includes three user LEDs that you can use to analyze an external circuit, along with an indicator for the reset pin status. These indicators stick out beyond the Uno’s footprint, giving you easy access, even in the middle of a “shield sandwich.” The shield also is equipped with male header pins alongside the female stacking headers, allowing you to hook up to any one of them for circuit analysis.

If needed, you can even turn off the status LEDs, advantageous in some situations as they can consume up to 125mA. Finally, there’s a prototyping area in the middle of the board, enabling you to use this space to actually make your projects. While any of these functions could be implemented by themselves, having these convenient features ready-made package could certainly save you time and frustration!

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
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