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Qwiic Thermocouple Amplifier - MCP9600
The MCP9600 is a high accuracy thermocouple amplifier equipped with an I2C interface, accessed over our Qwiic system. Inside the chip are two temperature sensors, one for the thermocouple itself (the hot junction) and one for the chip itself (the cold junction). As a result, the MCP9600 can read both the ambient temperature and the temperature of whatever you're trying to measure! The MCP9600 can do both with a resolution of 0.0625°C, and an accuracy of ±1.5°C (worst-case). This board comes ready to accept a K-type thermocouple, which gives a temperature range of -200°C to 1350°C! This makes it perfect for a variety of applications, from measuring the temperature of your Crock-Pot to making sure your backyard induction furnace is up to temperature.
In addition, the MCP9600 has four onboard temperature alerts that you can configure! Instead of constantly polling the sensor over I2C, you can set a temperature limit to trigger an interrupt when the temperature reaches a certain value. This frees up your microcontroller and your I2C bus to do more important things.
It's also possible to put the MCP9600 into alternate operation modes in order to save power. The sensor supports a burst mode, where it will take a specifiable number of samples, return the results, and then go to sleep. This low-power mode makes the MCP9600 perfect for portable applications!
We've written an Arduino library to help you get started quickly. You can download the library through the Arduino library manager by searching 'SparkFun MCP9600' or you can get the GitHub repo as a .zip file and install the library from there.
This board is one of our many Qwiic compatible boards! Simply plug and go. No soldering, no figuring out which is SDA or SCL, and no voltage regulation or translation required!
We do not plan to regularly produce SparkX products, so get them while they’re hot!
NOTE: The I2C address of the MCP9600 is 0x66 and is jumper selectable to 0x60 through 0x67. A multiplexer/Mux is required to communicate to multiple MCP9600 sensors on a single bus. If you need to use more than one MCP9600 sensor consider using the Qwiic Mux Breakout.
Experimental Product: SparkX products are rapidly produced to bring you the most cutting edge technology as it becomes available. These products are tested but come with no guarantees. Live technical support is not available for SparkX products. Head on over to our forum for support or to ask a question.
- MCP9600 Datasheet
- The Arduino Library can be found by searching SparkFun MCP9600 in the Arduino Library Manager, or through our GitHub repo!
- Example code can be found inside the library.
- Schematic
- Hardware Repo
Comments
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Customer Reviews
4.5 out of 5
Based on 2 ratings:
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Good but can be improved
I set up this board with an STM32F103 (blue pill) controller and used CubeMX to handle the I2C communication and displayed the temperature on a 2 line LCD. I'm using a K type thermocouple that I inserted into the melting point capillary slot of a MEL-TEMP melting point laboratory instrument. I used the slot furthest away from the heater, but closest to the mercury thermometer and recorded the temperature on the thermometer vs the thermocouple. I started at 24 deg C and ended at 250 deg C.
The thermocouple temperature was within 1 deg of the thermometer up to 170 deg C. Above 170 the temperature deviated with increasing temperature. The deviation was 3 deg between 170 and 200 deg C. Between 200 and 250 deg the deviation was 5 deg. I'll probably just use software to add a correction factor in these regions.
The board is easy to hook up using the 4 pin connectors provided, but the thermocouple connector is terrible unless you have a thermocouple with a blade type connector (which I don't). You have to push the wires into the connector. If the wires are thin forget it - the wire bends before you can get it into the connector. I had to buy thermocouples with thicker wires (below 24 AWG).
Suggest you use a different connector in your next revision - or at least give people the option to specify the connector they want when they order.
Works great for me!
Got it working in no time. I'm using it as temperature feedback sensor for my solder reflow oven.
anyone set this up on a raspberry pi? i've been using an a/d + thermocouple amp but its picking up far too much noise (rather far tween kiln and controller). putting a set of these on kiln + differential driver pair should make things a lot better.
"accuracy of ±1.5°C (worst-case)" - if you happen to get a board built with chips affected by: http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/80000741B.pdf , you are looking at several degrees of error, especially at sub 0.00C temps.
lesson learned.
Thanks for the heads up. Luckily, that looks like it was a few years back; however, I'll pass the information along so that someone can check the date codes.