Adafruit MPU-6050 6-DoF Accel and Gyro Sensor - STEMMA QT Qwiic

The MPU-6050 is a popular six DoF accelerometer and gyroscope (gyro) that has all the info you need on how things are shaking and spinning. With six axes of sensing and 16-bit measurements, you'll have everything you need to give your robot friend a sense of balance, using the MPU-6050 as its inner ear.

Inside are two sensors, one is a classic 3-axis accelerometer, which can tell you which direction is down towards the Earth (by measuring gravity). The other is a gyroscope that can sense how fast the board is being twisted around. By combining this data you can tell how your project is moving through space

This combination of gyroscopes and accelerometers is commonly referred to as an Inertial Measurement Unit or IMU. Not so long ago IMUs were the size of a breadbox and cost up to $50,000! While you're not going to be using it to guide your mars rocket, the MPU-6050 is several orders of magnitude smaller and a bargain at a price three orders of magnitude less!  Now you can add telemetry to your water rocket (with some waterproofing).

To make life easier so you can focus on your important work, Adafruit have taken the MPU-6050 and put it onto a breakout PCB along with support circuitry to let you use this little wonder with 3.3V (Feather/Raspberry Pi) or 5V (Arduino/ Metro328) logic levels. Additionally, since it speaks I2C you can easily connect it up with two wires (plus power and ground!). 

This compact sensor uses I2C to communicate, and it's very easy to use. Simply download the Adafruit library and connect the SCL pin to your I2C clock pin, and SDA pin to your I2C data pin and upload our test program to read out accelerometer and gyroscoping data.

We've even included SparkFun qwiic compatible STEMMA QT connectors for the I2C bus so you don't even need to solder! 

To know more about STEMMA QT, watch this video:

Pinout:

• Power Pins
  • Vin - this is the power pin. Since the sensor chip uses 3 VDC, we have included a voltage regulator on board that will take 3-5VDC and safely convert it down. To power the board, give it the same power as the logic level of your microcontroller - e.g. for a 5V microcontroller like Arduino, use 5V
  • 3Vo - this is the 3.3V output from the voltage regulator, you can grab up to 100mA from this if you like
  • GND - common ground for power and logic
• I2C Logic Pins
  • SCL - I2C clock pin, connect to your microcontroller's I2C clock line. This pin is level shifted so you can use 3-5V logic, and there's a 10K pullup on this pin.
  • SDA -I2C data pin, connect to your microcontroller's I2C data line. This pin is level shifted so you can use 3-5V logic, and there's a 10K pullup on this pin.
  • STEMMA QT - These connectors allow you to connectors to dev boards with STEMMA QT connectors or to other things with various associated accessories
• Other Pins
  • INT -This is the interrupt pin. You can setup the MPU-6050 to pull this low when certain conditions are met such as new measurement data being available. Consult the datasheet and register map for usage
  • AD0 - I2C Address pin. Pulling this pin high or bridging the solder jumper on the back will change the I2C address from 0x68 to 0x69
  • FS, SCE, SDE, CLKIN - Pins for advanced users to connect the MPU-6050 to another sensor. Consult the datasheet and register map for usage

• Features the MPU-6050 6-DoF Accelerator and Gyro Sensor
• Communicates via I2C
• Comes with SparkFun Qwiic compatible STEMMA QT JST SH connectors

• 1 x  Adafruit MPU-6050 6-DoF Accel and Gyro Sensor - STEMMA QT Qwiic
• 1 x Header pin

• Adafruit MPU-6050 6-DoF Accel and Gyro Sensor overview
• MPU6050 Datasheet
• MPU6050 Register Map
• EagleCAD files on GitHub
• Fritzing object in Adafruit Fritzing Library