This small graphic card shield lets you connect your Arduino boards to any kind of TV or monitor with RGB or AV ports.
If you’re like Masih Vahida, the thought of having a large color display connected to your Arduino to show values, text and other information on the screen has certainly passed through your mind. With hopes of making this a reality for developers and hobbyists alike, the electronics engineer has created what he calls VGADuino. It’s a small graphic card shield that enables you to expand your Arduino project to any TV and monitor with RGB or AV ports.
The shield fits nicely on an Uno (ATmega328) and is compatible with the Arduino IDE as well as any Arduino boards using pins VCC, GND, RX and TX. Moreover, it offers Arduino VGA (DB15) and AV composite ports to link to the display.
“The screen resolution is 640×480 VGA. It has 17 text lines and one text scrolling line. Each line can show up to 27 characters and the scroller line can show up to 60 characters,” Vahida explains.
“You can change the colors from your code and easily can show your text where ever you want on screen. The device support standard ASCII codes for English, Persian and Arabic fonts.”
Interested? Head over to its official Kickstarter campaign, where Vahida has already surpassed his $1,000 goal. With a price tag of only $29, the units are expected to begin shipping in October 2015.
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