Assembly:

The board comes with all surface-mount components pre-soldered.  The included header strip can be soldered on for convenient use on a breadboard or with 0.1" connectors.   However, for applications subject to extreme accelerations, shock or vibration, locking connectors or direct soldering is advised.

Prepare the header strip:

Cut the strip[ to length if necessary.  It will be easier to solder if you insert it into a breadboard - long pins down.

Add the breakout board:

Place the breakout board over the pins.

(You can prop up the free edge of the board with some extra pins to better align it for soldering.)

And Solder!

Be sure to solder all pins for reliable electrical contact.

(For tips on soldering, be sure to check out our Guide to Excellent Soldering).

Wiring:

You'll need to power the breakout, you can power it from 3V-5VDC, connect ground to GND and VCC to our power supply (3-5V)

The L3GD20 breakout board supports both I2C and SPI communication. I2C requires the fewest connections, so we will start with that:

Wiring for I2C:

I2C requires only 2 pins (in addition to VCC and ground).

'Classic' Arduino Wiring:

On pre-R3 Arduinos, the I2C pins are:
  • SDA = Analog 4
  • SCL = Analog 5

For the Mega
  • SDA = Digital 20
  • SCL = Digital 21

R3 and Later Arduino Wiring:

Although the 'classic' wiring will still work,  All R3 and later Arduinos (including Mega, Due and Leonardo) have SDA and SCL pins on the extended header next to AREF for compatibility.

Wiring for SPI:

The SPI interface requires 4 wires (in addition to VCC and Ground).

SPI Wiring:

The library uses "software SPI" so the choice of pins is a little more flexible.  What we show here is compatible with the example code included with the library:

  • CS = Digital 4
  • SAO = Digital 5
  • SDA = Digital 6
  • SCL = Digital 7

This guide was first published on Jan 02, 2013. It was last updated on Mar 18, 2024.

This page (Assembly and Wiring) was last updated on Dec 30, 2012.

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