SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus Hookup Guide

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Contributors: El Duderino
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Introduction

The SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus provides an easy-to-assemble way to add the SparkFun Qwiic ecosystem to any development board with the Thing Plus Footprint. This shield is also compatible with the Feather Footprint so you can add Qwiic functionality to any development board that uses the Thing Plus or Feather Footprints! It connects the I2C bus (GND, 3.3V, SDA, and SCL) on your Thing Plus to four SparkFun Qwiic connectors. The Qwiic ecosystem allows for easy daisy chaining so, as long as your devices are on different addresses, you can connect as many Qwiic devices as you'd like.

SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus

SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus

DEV-16790
$4.95

Required Materials

To follow along with this tutorial, you will need an Arduino development board with the Thing Plus footprint. This includes the all variants of the SparkFun Thing Plus boards and many other Thing Plus-compatible boards! Here are a few of the compatible boards:

SparkFun Thing Plus - ESP32 WROOM (Micro-B)

SparkFun Thing Plus - ESP32 WROOM (Micro-B)

WRL-15663
$22.50
14
SparkFun Thing Plus - Artemis

SparkFun Thing Plus - Artemis

WRL-15574
$22.50
3
SparkFun Thing Plus - SAMD51

SparkFun Thing Plus - SAMD51

DEV-14713
$21.50
2

The Qwiic Shield includes a set of stackable headers to fit the Thing Plus footprint but you may also need some headers to solder to your Thing Plus. Or if you would prefer to use another header type for your shield assembly we've listed a few options below:

Female Headers

Female Headers

PRT-00115
$1.75
8
Break Away Headers - Straight

Break Away Headers - Straight

PRT-00116
$1.75
20
Break Away Headers - Long

Break Away Headers - Long

PRT-10158
$3.25
3
Feather Stackable Header Kit

Feather Stackable Header Kit

PRT-15187
$1.75

Now you probably would not want the Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus if you didn't have any Qwiic products to use with it, right? Well, if you don't have any Qwiic products, the following might not be a bad place to start:

SparkFun GPS Breakout - NEO-M9N, U.FL (Qwiic)

SparkFun GPS Breakout - NEO-M9N, U.FL (Qwiic)

GPS-15712
$69.95
5
SparkFun High Precision Temperature Sensor - TMP117 (Qwiic)

SparkFun High Precision Temperature Sensor - TMP117 (Qwiic)

SEN-15805
$14.95
5
SparkFun Qwiic Motor Driver

SparkFun Qwiic Motor Driver

ROB-15451
$19.50
3
SparkFun Proximity Sensor Breakout - 20cm, VCNL4040 (Qwiic)

SparkFun Proximity Sensor Breakout - 20cm, VCNL4040 (Qwiic)

SEN-15177
$7.50
1

You will need some of our Qwiic cables to connect your devices to the shield. Below are a few options:

Qwiic Cable - 100mm

Qwiic Cable - 100mm

PRT-14427
$1.50
Qwiic Cable - 50mm

Qwiic Cable - 50mm

PRT-14426
$0.95

Qwiic Cable - 200mm

PRT-14428
Retired

Qwiic Cable - 500mm

PRT-14429
1 Retired

Lastly, if you want to use a non-Qwiic I2C device, these adapters help to convert it to a Qwiic connector:

SparkFun Qwiic Adapter

SparkFun Qwiic Adapter

DEV-14495
$1.60
5
Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)

Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)

PRT-14425
$1.50

Qwiic Cable - Female Jumper (4-pin)

CAB-14988
Retired

Required Tools

You will need a soldering iron, solder, and general soldering accessories to solder the header pins to the Qwiic shields:

Solder Lead Free - 15-gram Tube

Solder Lead Free - 15-gram Tube

TOL-09163
$3.95
4
Soldering Iron - 30W (US, 110V)

Soldering Iron - 30W (US, 110V)

TOL-09507
$10.95
7

Suggested Reading

If you aren't familiar with the Qwiic system, we recommend reading here for an overview:

Qwiic Connect System
Qwiic Connect System

We would also recommend taking a look at the following tutorials if you aren't familiar with them:

How to Solder: Through-Hole Soldering

This tutorial covers everything you need to know about through-hole soldering.

I2C

An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded communications protocols in use today.