Well it looks like the folks over at arduino.cc decided to redesign the Ethernet shield. We have found that this some compatibility issues with the sprout board. This article shows you how to create a simple ICSP jumper wire and make a slight mod on the Ethernet shield to make it work with the sprout board. Future versions of the sprout board will have this built onboard, but for now this simple hack works quite well.
To start off this little hack we will need just a few things.
1- 6 pin header
2 – 6 pin Socket
1 – 6 strand wire ( 5-6 inches)
Step one is we need to flatten the pins to a 90 degree angle to get the clearance we need.
Step 2 – We need to then solder our wires to the pins. for the first side it doesn’t matter what the orientation is, but I like to use a ribbon cable like you would find in a computer and connect the red wire to pin 1.
Step 2. We need to now connect the pin 1 wire correctly to this side. I found that I had to flip the wire upside down (mirror) to get it setup right.
Here we can see our completed wire. on the end of the wire that connects to the Ethernet shield we don’t need to flatten the pins out just so its noted.
Here we have our Ethernet shield. We will need to change the header pins for the ICSP jack on the rear of the board.
The bottom of the Ethernet shield. The default setup is to have a socket type jack facing down, we will be changing this to pins facing up.
Step 1 – Disorder and remove the existing socket. make sure the holes are clear and open. A good disordering bulb or iron helps with this step.
Step 2 – We then install our 6 pin header into the holes and solder from the bottom.
Here we can see the finished wire. I used a thin layer of hot glue on the soldered ends of the wire to both insulate and insure it wouldn’t get damaged while installing it.
Here we can see the clearance on the right side of the picture we needed to concern our self’s with. Overall this is an easy hack to use the newest Ethernet shield on our sprout board. And with the easy access to the SD card reader it’s a great match.
