Electronics Hardware
In our configuration, we are powering the Arduino, shields and Lego motors using a single power supply. To do this, each shield must have the Power Jumper set. A jumper comes with each shield and must be set as shown in the below picture:
Next, the shield headers (the pins that allow the shield to be installed on to the Arduino) need to be soldered. If only one shield will be used, then the shield headers that come with the shield should be sufficient. If more than one shield will be used, then the stacking headers (bought separately) should be used. Either task is simple and both are described in the Adafruit website quite succintly.
Each shield can control up to 4 pumps. There are 4 possible motor connections (M1-M4). Connectors M1 and M2 are on one side of the shield and connectors M3 and M4 are on the opposite side. These are marked directly on the shield as is visible on the image below. The image also shows the positive and negative leads on the connectors (there is an extra ground (gnd) connector, which is not used).
To connect each shield to a pump, we first take two male-female jumper wires and cut them in half. Then, using a small Phillips head screwdriver, the male half is fitted to the negative connector and the female half is fitted to the positive connector.
In progress
When using multiple shields, one final soldering step is required. As explained in the Adafruit website, each should must have an address and this is set by soldering it into the shield. For the shields to work with the NanoJ-Optofluidics software, each shield must be numbered sequentially, starting from 0. So, if 3 shields are required, one shield will be shield 0, another will be shield 1 and the final one will be shield 2. The shields can be stacked in any order, regardless of its address but we prefer to place first shield 0, then shield 1 then shield 2, and so on, which facilitates identification.
You may now proceed to the software installation portion of the wiki.