NightShade Electronics is proud to present the energyShield! The energyShield is an Arduino shield designed with one simple purpose in mind: to help innovators everywhere power their projects without being tied to a wire.

Here at NightShade we have made many Arduino projects. With each of these projects comes hours of soldering (or breadboarding). Once that is completed you generally plug your newly created project into your computer and spend more hours programming it. Eventually it comes to life and you have this beautifully working project… when it’s connected to your computer. This is the point at which we face the frustrating challenge of trying to rig up some way to power the project elsewhere. Be it a power adapter or battery pack plugged into the barrel jack, these methods are clunky at best. For this reason, we created the energyShield!

The energyShield is a combination of a lithium-polymer battery, a robust dc-dc boost circuit to increase the battery voltage to 5v, and a current sensing fuel gauge chip. To charge the energyShield, simply plug it into the included wall adapter for a few hours. This can be while the shield is connected to an Arduino or standing alone. If it is connected to the Arduino it will fully power your project while charging. Once the shield is charged, attach it to an Arduino, flip the power switch, and you are good to go! The energyShield library can be used to monitor the battery voltage, current draw, and the remaining battery charge via two wire interface (TWI). After weeks of playing with working prototypes here at NightShade, we still can’t get past how easy this makes powering projects.

To date, we have built and tested four working prototypes. These are the products that you see in all of our promotional material. We have been working with suppliers to ramp up to full production as soon as we make our last minor revisions to the design. We are launching a Kickstarter campaign to amass the money needed to place our first production order. This is where you come in! We would greatly appreciate support from any Arduino-er out there who would like to own one of these great products, or from anyone who would like to see an innovative startup come to life. If this project gets funded, the energyShield is just the beginning. Please support us by clicking the link below and placing a pledge on our Kickstarter campaign.

If you don’t know anything about Arduinos, don’t have money to pledge, or all of the above, please support us by sharing this with all of your friends! We would really appreciate it.

Thank you from all of us!
The NightShade Team