BadgerHack: Sensor Add-On Kit

Pages
Contributors: Sarah Al-Mutlaq
Favorited Favorite 5

Hardware Hook-up

There is a little bit of soldering, so if you need a quick refresher on that I suggest taking a look at our soldering tutorial.

To begin, snap off 15 pins from the break-away headers, and solder them to the through-holes on the side opposite the LED array of the BadgerStick.

BadgerStick with headers

You can place the headers in the breadboard to help keep them in place as you solder.

Soldering BadgerStick with breadboard

The rest of the setup will be using the breadboard and the jumper wires.

Start by sticking the headers you just soldered to your stick at a corner of your breadboard.

Now we will connect the sensors as follows:

Component Pin Badger/Redstick Pin
Soil Moisture Sensor VCC VCC
Soil Moisture Sensor GND GND
Soil Moisture Sensor SIG A0
Temperature Sensor left GND
Temperature Sensor middle A4
Temperature Sensor right VCC

* Pins not listed are not used.

Here is a picture layout of how to connect everything up

Fritzing Diagram of badgerstick badgerhack add-on kit hookup

Fritzing diagram of a RedStick hookup (GND and VCC slightly different on a BadgerStick).

SparkFun BadgerStick and Sensor Add-on kit layout

IMPORTANT: You will need to power your Badgerstick/Redstick through its USB port or a USB extension cable, so that the analog sensors are getting a known voltage. You can cut the battery pack off, you can leave the battery pack attached but turned off, or you can power it through the battery pack. Just know that your temp reading will become less accurate the more your battery drains.

With everything hooked up, it's time to upload some code.