Arduino Due shield compatability

[garogers53]

Is there a way to determine which shields are compatible with the Arduino Due? I am currently interested in the Wave Shield, but will have the same question about other shields as well.
Thanks...

[dennisma]

Adafruit should answer this definitively but... The waveshield has a 3.3 volt regulator for the SD card. That would not be needed (and not work) at 3.3v. Voltage regulators need a certain percentage above the voltage being regulated to work. The Wave shield also has a level shifter for the SD card which would also not be needed.

I "think" if you built this wave shield you would have to solder in some connections where the voltage regulator would go.

AGAIN... you should confirm this with Adafruit.

The operating voltages for the ICs listed on the board (parts list is here: http://www.ladyada.net/make/waveshield/parts.html) all seem to work with voltages as low as 2.7 volts according to their datasheets. You should confirm this yourself however.

The WaveHD library did compile with Arduino 1.5.1r2 beta but whether it really works well... I cannot say since I don't have the shield.

I have not seen any list of Due compatible shields except to say that all the 'official Arduino' shields will work. if you come across such a list I am sure people would appreciate it being posted up.

If you have any shields you are interested in using on the Due your best bet is to email the vendor and/or post the question on the official Arduino Due forum. Also you can download their library(if they have one) and try compiling it first.

[adafruit_support_bill]

The compatibility issues go beyond simple voltage levels. The location of the hardware SPI pins and I2C pins are different from a standard arduino. This affects any shields that use SPI (i.e. all the shields with SD card readers) or I2C. Also the port-to-pin mappings are different. That causes problems with any libraries that use port-level I/O for optimization. I have not plugged wave shield into a Due, but I am pretty sure that there will be both board and library issues to resolve before that combination will work.