SODAQ
Connect Anything Anywhere
History of the SODAQ board
Like many Embedded Electronics projects we started with an Arduino board. With it's easily integrated development enviroment and simple programming language it guides many people on their first steps in developing electronics projects.
Although the Arduino is a very basic board, it allows you to expand your project by using "shields".
This is how our initial solution was built: We wanted to store our collected data so we needed an SD card slot. At the same time we also wanted a real time clock. Therefore we decided to use the memoire shield, which offers both of these.
With a Real Time Clock you know when you recorded the data and with an SD card you can store this data.
The next step was to allow the unit to operate independently, off the grid. For this we needed a solar panel and a battery. To be able to control the charge system we used the solar power shield.
The board was now solar and battery powered and could run autonomously, but we wanted to transfer the data wirelessly. The easiest way to do this was by using an Xbee, WifiBee or GPRSbee module, that fits into a Bee socket. Thus we needed the Bee shield.
Many of the arduino projects use a breadboard and jumper wires. This is sufficient for experimenting, but if want to create a real life solution you woluld rather have a more solid form of wiring.
The Grove connector system makes life a lot easier. One simple four wire cable connects a wide range of sensors, actuators, LED's and othe modules in the same way. We decided to use this system for its simplicity and sturdiness.
This however did require the use of a Grove shield.
We finally had one board with four shields. So we had the following train of thought:
What if we can combine this all in a single board? We wouldn't just save a lot of space, but it would also be much cheaper to manufacture.
That is how the SODAQ board was born.
