On this page I will point out some of the amazing boards I have used in my projects. So leading into this I need to point out that I have a few medical issues, nervous system damage that affects my hands. With that said, one considerations is to use boards and Sensors, Modules that I can “wire up” with shaking hands. Wires that will not disconnect with a simple tap or two.
You will see in images and video’s I rarely use single pin jumper wires. My first set of purchases of 2 pin wires, 3 pin wires, all the way up to 6 pin wires.
So where did I get these wires? Amazon does not sell them, nor does Walmart, you can find a few at Adafruit, maybe even the Robot Shop. No I went to the source China. I have an account with AliExpress, (hopefully all this Tariff Foolishness will soon settle out). I used to purchase packs of 10-15 multi pin ( 2 – 6 pin ) wires, for $1.25 – $2.00 and free shipping to the US. Add to this wire Genders, Male to Male, Male to Female, and Female to Female. Over time I built up about 100 of each give or take. The following is a Snapshot today (November 20, 2025)
This comes with FREE shipping for orders over $10.00. And Yes they accept PayPal fore payments. I will personally vouch for AliExpress I have made hundreds of orders and Never did I not receive my order.
Now a penalty for ordering from China is that it takes roughly 4 weeks to arrive. You will save LOTS of money buying directly from China, instead of Amazon (They purchase from China, then heavily mark up for resale).
Next I want to point out some of my favorite sites, and why they are my favorite site. The First Site is Open-Smart official Store. They thought through their shields. Unlike Most Shields, Open-Smart looked at Sensors, and SD Modules and Such, Then designed their Shields to match the Pinout, so you can easily make good strong wire connections. examine the following images, this is my favorite Shield:
Its rather hard to see the matching pinout so here they are side by side:
You will not find this sort of thing on any other shields, I have looked!
Another example of this intelligent design thinking is MP3 Module design shown below:
Note: Shield pins D4/D5 or D3/D4 can be RX and TX with the use of the library SoftwareSerial. And once again a 4-wire Female to Female wire makes a strong connection, that won’t vibrate free.
I have shown two connections, there are many more examples. So what does this shield cost from China:
Once again Free shipping for orders over $10.00, (date: November, 20, 2025)
I could not find this shield on Amazon; however, most of the Shields I did find were $6-$17. a Far Cry from 3.59!
Notice on this shield all pin sets are 4 pin. Sensors, as a rule, are 3 pin, VCC (power), GND (ground), SIG (Signal). In many cases you’ll notice that some pins duplicate to multiple rows. A pin can ONLY be used by One Sensor. Open-Smart has a “Sensor” Shield:
This shield uses a different jumper wire connector, The two red connectors can be used for SD Cards, there are Seven three pin (blue) Sensor connectors (3 Digital, 4 Analog), and the Four Module connectors and Two I2C Connectors. Yet again a very well thought out Shield!
There are a Large number of Arduino Shields available, my caution is to NOT choose by Cost alone. The very best way to choose is to First evaluate the Sensors and Modules you need. Then Choose the Shield that best fits their pinout, (be aware the same sensor by a different manufacturer can have a different pinout). Always remember a Single pin wire is the least secure connection, the on most likely to fail and come loose. I have boards around my house that have been running faithfully reporting their data for years.
The big thing now in Arduino is the UNO Version 4. This Uno has an entirely NEW Processor the ESP32. A vast improvement in Speed, and Memory, and most notably WIFI. Wifi is massive improvement! No longer do you have jump through hoops to get an Uno online! And with 256 KB of memory, and speed of 48 Mhz, it WAY out classes it’s predecessor, but it’s price of $27.50 on Amazon, ouch!! So I went looking on AliExpress and found:
Now that’s more like it!