Description
The HMC5883L is a three-axis digital magnetometer commonly used in electronic compass applications. The sensor is specifically designed for low-field magnetic sensing and is sensitive enough to pick up the earth’s magnetic field, even within high magnetic field environments. Unlike a traditional compass, this three axis digital compass measures direction relative to all three axis relative to the position of the sensor, meaning it can be used to keep your project oriented accurately even when it is not level.
The HMC5883L’s onboard filtering and amplification result in a typical heading accuracy of 1 – 2 degrees. The sensor has a full scale range of -8 to 8 Gauss and adjustable data rates up to 160Hz. This breakout board simplifies the use of this tiny sensor, simply apply 3-5VDC and connect it to a microcontroller or single board computer’s i2c port. A host of libraries are available for popular platforms including Arduino and Raspberry Pi.