Adafruit Motor Shield with XBee Shield

Hello,

Installing the XBee Shield & Motor Shield onto the same Arduino board is physically impossible, but can I do it just by installing the Motor Shield and wiring the necessary pins from Arduino to XBee? As far as I know the XBee Shield just needs the TX/RX pins and the ICSP. Which pins does the Motor shield need?

TL;DR: Can I have XBee Shield & Adafruit Motor Shield on the same Arduino Duemilanove?

Thanks :slight_smile:

Installing the XBee Shield & Motor Shield onto the same Arduino board is physically impossible

Not necessarily. Depends on whether you have the fully assembled motor shield, or a kit, and which XBee shield you are referring to.

If you get the motor shield as a kit, you can change the header pins for stacking header pins. Then, you could mount another shield on top of it that does not use the same pins.

There are different XBee shields, too. Some use the ICSP pins. Others do not. Again, if you get an XBee shield that does not use the ICSP pins, and you get it in kit form, you can assemble it using stacking headers.

can I do it just by installing the Motor Shield and wiring the necessary pins from Arduino to XBee?

Yes.

As far as I know the XBee Shield just needs the TX/RX pins and the ICSP.

The ICSP connection is supplying power and ground only. You can use +V and Gnd from other places instead.

Which pins does the Motor shield need?

Depends on what you are driving with it.
http://www.ladyada.net/make/mshield/faq.html
See the question on pins.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer.

I already got the Arduino and the XBee shield (v1.1, http://tinyurl.com/39qos8n) but the Motor Shield is going to arrive tomorrow, as a kit.

I don't think I will assemble it with the stacking header pins, as I won't stack it anyways because the space is vertically limited. I read the Motor Shield manual and it said the Shield only uses some digital pins depending on which motors one is running. So all I need to do is assemble the Motor Shield, install it on the Duemilanove and then wire the RX/TX and +V & Gnd to the XBee shield and I'm done!