Breakout boards
Setting up the DXL335 triple axis accelerometer is pretty straight forward. First I soldered 6 straight breakaway headers into the ADXL335 in order to easily plug the breakout board directly into the analog pins in the Arduino.
Once soldered I plugged the accelerometer in to the following pins:
| Breakout Pin | Analog Pin |
|---|---|
| Self-Test | 0 |
| Z-Axis | 1 |
| Y-Axis | 2 |
| X-Axis | 3 |
| Ground | 4 |
| VCC | 5 |
Once the accelerometer was in place it was time to test.
/*
This short program reads data from the ADXL335 axis accelerometer
*/
const int groundpin = 18; // analog input pin 4 -- ground
const int powerpin = 19; // analog input pin 5 -- voltage
const int xpin = A3; // x-axis of the accelerometer
const int ypin = A2; // y-axis
const int zpin = A1; // z-axis
const String XHEADER = "X: ";
const String YHEADER = "Y: ";
const String ZHEADER = "Z: ";
const String TAB = "\t";
void setup()
{
// initialize the serial communications:
Serial.begin(9600);
// Power and ground the necessary pins. Providing power to both
// the analog and digital pins allow me to just use the breakout
// board and not have to use the normal 5V and GND pins
pinMode(groundpin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(powerpin, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(groundpin, LOW);
digitalWrite(powerpin, HIGH);
}
void loop()
{
// print values that are recieved from the sensors and put a tab between
// the values
Serial.print(XHEADER + analogRead(xpin) + TAB);
Serial.print(YHEADER + analogRead(ypin) + TAB);
Serial.print(ZHEADER + analogRead(zpin));
Serial.println();
delay(200);
}
Using this code I was able to get the following output from the board when it was set on a flat surface:
X: 500 Y: 512 Z: 594
These values will represent the baseline for detecting movement.