What Makes The Sunflower Shield Great?
Premium Multi-domain Vertical Alignment (MVA) TFT Display
Easy to use 5-point Multi-touch Capacitive Touch Screen
High Brightness White LED Backlight (660 cd/m2)
Supports Portrait and Landscape Display Mode
Smooth Animations at up to 60 frames/second
LED Driver with Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
True 24-bit Color
On-board Bridgetek FT813 Graphics Controller IC with Display, Touch and Audio Functionality
On-board Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Audio and Speaker Amplifier
Terminal Block with Push-Buttons for Driving an External 8Ω 1W Speaker
Micro-SD Socket for Application Storage
On-board Maxim MAX31855 K-type Thermocouple Amplifier (-200°C to +700°C with an accuracy of ±2°C)
On-board Thermocouple Contacts to Accept a Standard Thermocouple Connector
Terminal Block with Push-Buttons for Solid-State Relay (SSR) Control
4 x 3.2mm Mounting Holes Enabling Standard M3 or #6-32 Screws
(1) microSD card slot
(2) Level Translator
(3) Embedded Video Engine
(4) LED Driver
(5) K-type Thermocouple Amplifier
(6) Audio Filter and Power Amplifier
(7) Thermocouple Contacts
(8) Solid-State Relay (SSR) Control
(9) Audio Connector
(10) Solid-State Relay (SSR) LED Indicator
(11) 3.3V Regulator
(12) Power LED Indicator
(13) Reset Button
Hardware Made Easy!
The Sunflower Shield is ready to go, right out of the box — The Shield is fully assembled, tested and ready to go! Simply connect the Sunflower Shield with an Arduino and load up our example sketches.
Check Out Our Package Contents:
Is it Open Source?
Yes! We have greatly benefited from the open source community and we are dedicated to give back. The hardware is released under the Creative Commons ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Compatible Arduino’s
The Sunflower Shield is compatible with a wide range of Arduino and Arduino clones, however there are some which are not compatible. The Sunflower Shield requires 5V to be supplied from the Arduino itself, and some Arduino clones, specifically 3.3V versions such as the Arduino Pro 3.3V, feature 3.3V on the pin typically specified as being 5V. These 3.3V varieties are not compatible as 5V is required for the Sunflower Shield itself.
Known compatible Arduino’s for the Sunflower Shield:
Uno, NerO, Leonardo, Mega 2560
(Others may also be compatible.)
Shipping
We will ship all Kickstarter rewards globally from the United States of America by using a registered parcel costing approximately $9 USD for domestic and slightly more for international.
Any import duty or VAT is the responsibility of the backer, whom we assume is an individual rather than a corporation.
Please note that we can ship to most countries with the exception of Argentina, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar/Burma, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
Timeline for delivery
Risks and challenges
In order to reduce the frustration of backers, we chose to work ahead of time and made sure that the project was as close as possible to mass production before launching this Kickstarter campaign. The development and tooling costs are paid for and the funding required is purely to cover the costs of the production runs.
Here are some potential risks and how we plan to address them:
Business, Budget, Finance:
We decided to launch our Kickstarter the “right way” by forming an LLC, obtaining a tax ID, and business banking services. We have a budget, modeled our potential income, identified pitfalls, created wiggle room within our budget, and have spoken to several different successful Kickstarter launchers about what problems they ran into.
Electronic Hardware Production:
All project members have experience in electronic production and assembly, and have used contract manufacturers in the past to produce commercial and non-commercial electronic products. While we do not claim to be experts, we know what it takes to successfully take a design from an idea to full production.
We have suppliers lined up, and to the best of our knowledge, should be able to deliver without any problems.
In summary, we believe the risk in backing this project is extremely low.
