Give my new library a try.

Use it to control Allegro A6281 based RGB LED boards (Brilldea PolkaDOT and various from Macetech.)
I have a daisy chain of 8 running off my Netduino (only USB power so far.)
It is a little light on documentation, but the sample application should get you going.

Let me know what you think.

uA6281 on Codeplex.com

Hi SupraBitKid,
You beat me to it! I have my lib for already working with ShiftBrites and was ready to publish it soon :-)
Now I guess I will look at yours to see if I can contribute anything.

Great work. Thanks for posting!

I shoot the video either with Logitech QuickCam 9000 Pro or with Canon 550D camera. For editing I simply used Movie Maker from Windows Live Essentials. Was sufficent to Combine two videos and add title and end pages. Some cool transition animations are in the new beta version. You can download it free here http://explore.live....essentials-beta I upload my videos to vimeo:

Well I keep finding cool stuff and get sidetracked from current projects, but this has gone to the top of my list.

http://www.adafruit....products_id=285

Can I use that with the netduino? It would be extremely awesome if I could stick it to some clothing and make cool paterns.

Yes, but you will need externall power supply, because most of these RGB strips require 12V. And to control brightness of individual RGB channels the LED driver chip will be best. There is already library for the Allegro A6281 based boards:

http://forums.netdui...-a6281-library/

Are there any others I should look into? I'm on the Windows platform, BTW.

Did you look at Fritzing? It's what I use to document schematics for my projects.
And CW2 already created Fritzing part for Netduino.

As the topic states, what prototype shield would you recommend?

Yesterday I received bunch of these shields ordered from Adafruit:
http://www.adafruit....&products_id=51
http://www.adafruit....products_id=187

Haven't tried them yet with Netduino, but I had used the first one in past with Arduino and I think its very well designed. Especially if you plan to test some ICs than it has a dedicated pads for it (up to 20 pins). You also get two LEDs and general use button. Important to note that reset button is brought up so it's not obscured by the shield. Important to note that board is double-sided so you can solder on both sides.

If you don't need the extra components you can order just the PCB for half the price:
http://www.adafruit....&products_id=55
But you also need the headers http://www.adafruit....&products_id=85
Or if you don't plant to stack shields simple break-away headers like this (you can cut them easily to proper length):
http://www.sparkfun....products_id=116

The other shield is just regular single-sided prototyping surface but you get lots of free space.

Moving this discussion from the main forum. I think the bigest benefit for RepRap would be to use Netduino Plus. With network connection it could work just like a regular printer. And the SD card would be used as a print buffer, so one could send the whole print job, and turn off the computer (3D printers are still quite slow). Indeed this sounds as a very exciting thing to do. Hopefuly some people in Japan are already working on this (the shield was designed by Kenzo Yoshida).

That's a fantastic idea.

Do you think it would make sense to use the USB port on the regular Netduino to make a RepRap type of device which could be printed via USB as well?

Yes, I think this might work too. But I think Ethernet+SC card combo would make it more interesting. I will try to digg why people are looking to use ARM boards for RepRap in general. Maybe Arduino has other limitations they want to solve this way.

I am thinking down the road as far as projects are concerned, but I was wondering if the Netduino can be programmed to transfer data to and from the Netduino running in a standalone mode to a PC. For Example, a button is pressed on the Netduino or an analog value is registered and it sends useable results to a program running on a PC - outside of the Visual.net framework.

Hi Greg,
Please see here for discussion of this topic http://forums.netdui...talking-to-wpf/