FDC1004 capacitance sensor breakout board
If you don't already have one, you can buy a board from here
The FDC1004 is a single-chip IC for capacitance measurement for application including proximity sensing and liquid level sensing. This is based on the concept of measuring capacitance of an electrode with respect to ground.
This breakout board contains everything to connect it to an Arduino's I2C pins and it can be connected to any other platform with support for I2C two-wire interfaces.
We have made several cool projects with it including proximity sensing and liquid-level sensing from the outside of a tank. Check out our Hackster page for the detailed project description.
Features
- Breakout contains the Texas Instruments FDC1004 IC
- 4 channel measurement
- On-board 3.3V voltage regulator
- Output data rates up to 400 Samples/second
- Easy-to-use I2C interface
Specifications
- Capacitance measurement range: +/- 15 pF
- Resolution: 0.5 fF
- Maximum offset capacitance: 100 pF
Hardware Setup
Connection with the Arduino board is as follows:
| FDC1004 pin label | Arduino Connection | Pin Function |
|---|---|---|
| GND | GND | GND |
| SCL | A5 | Serial Clock |
| Vcc | 5V | Power |
| SDA | A4 | Serial Data |
Software Setup
Protocentral has already written the Arduino library for FDC1004. You can obtain it by clicking the below button or by downloading it from FDC1004 Github repository.
Follow the instructions described in the Installing Arduino Library section, search for Protocentral FDC1004 Capacitive Sensor Library in the Library Manager and install the latest version.
Arduino Examples
Measure Raw Capacitance
-
Open serial terminal window, set the baud rate to 115200 and you should see the capacitance values obtained from the FDC1004 Breakout Board.
