Compass

Introduction

The electronic compass is designed to detect the earth’s magnetic field and provide magnetic heading data to a microcontroller like Arduino. The one we’ll be using today is the GY-271 module, based on the HMC5883L sensor.

Equipped with a Hall-effect sensor, the GY-271 offers reasonable accuracy for measuring magnetic orientation. It incorporates a three-axis system that detects variations in the magnetic field on the X, Y and Z axes. This data can be used to determine the direction in which the module is oriented in relation to magnetic north.

  • GY-271 compass pins

  • Vcc : To be connected to the 3.3V of the Arduino board
  • GND : Connect to Arduino board ground
  • SDA : Connect to pin A4 of analog outputs
  • SCL: Connect to pin A5 of analog outputs

Electronic schematic

Here’s the circuit diagram for connecting the GY-271. It uses the i2C of the Arduino board:

Programming

 

To download the program for the GY-271 compass you’ll need to install the adafruit library for the HMC5883, which is the chip that controls our compass: