Maker SHED

The 64 Button Shield 64 is an Arduino Shield that allows you to connect up to 64 buttons to your Arduino. You can use the B64 to make custom musical instruments, attach a lot of inputs, cool computer interfaces, etc, etc.

The B64 has two eight pin connectors that make an eight row by eight column matrix for the total of 64 buttons. You do not have to format the button layout in a physical matrix nor do you have to use all of the 64 buttons. Unused buttons are simply ignored.

Note: This comes as a kit, soldering required. Also, an Arduino is required to use the kit.

• Everything you ever wanted to know about the 64 Button Shield can be found here!

The B64 has its own microprocessor that takes care of all button scanning and decoding. Then simply sends messages to the Arduino that a particular button has been pressed or released.

The messages sent to the Arduino are very simple; when a button is pressed, the button number from 1 to 64 is sent with the MSB (MSB = Most significant bit) bit set. Meaning; A pressed button is from 129 to 192 (1 to 64 + 128) where a pressed button "1" is 129 and pressed button "64" is 192. When a button is released the shield sends just the button number 1 to 64, without the MSB bit set.

Here is what the message looks like; b'10000001' Button "1" has been pressed vs b'00000001' = Button "1" has been released. Where b'10000001' = 128 and b'00000001'= 1. (For more info on binary numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system )