Adafruit Triple-axis Magnetometer (Compass) Board (HMC5883L)

Description

He told you “Go West, young maker!” – but you don’t know which way is West! Ah, if only you had this triple-axis magnetometer compass module. A magnetometer can sense where the strongest magnetic force is coming from, generally used to detect magnetic north.

We based this breakout on a popular and well loved magnetometer, the HMC5883L. This compact sensor uses I2C to communicate and its very easy to use. Since it’s a 3.3V max chip, we added circuitry to make it 5V-safe logic and power, for easy use with either 3 or 5V microcontrollers. Simply connect VCC to +3-5V and ground to ground. Then read data from the I2C clock and data pins. There’s also a Data Ready pin you can use to speed up reads.

This is the same magnetometer sensor that is inside the LSM303. So if you want an accelerometer as well as a magnetometer, check out the LSM303 – it has basically this sensor + a nice digital 3-axis accelerometer!

Specs:

• I2C interface
• 1-2 degree heading accuracy
• Integrated 12-bit ADC
• 160Hz max data rate
• Range of -8 to +8 Gauss

Technical Details

Specs:

• I2C interface
• 1-2 degree heading accuracy
• Integrated 12-bit ADC
• 160Hz max data rate
• Range of -8 to +8 Gauss
• This board/chip uses I2C 7-bit addresses 0x3C