Measure an analog voltage with the ADC of the Pi Pico in MicroPython
On the Raspberry Pi Pico, some pins are attached to the built-in ADC of the microcontroller. An ADC gives a digital value proportional to the measured input voltage.
Note
ADC stands for Analog to Digital Converter.
Features
On the Raspberry Pi Pico pins 26, 27 and 28 can be used as an analog input. The resolution of the measured values is on 16 bits, the values are therefore between 0 and 65535.
Note
On the uPesy RP2040 DevKit board, there is an additional analog input on pin 29.
Hint
There is a “hidden” analog input in the RP2040 microcontroller which allows to measure directly the temperature of the chip. This is somewhat similar to temperature measurements from computer CPUs. It should not be used to get an accurate room temperature. This input corresponds to the channel
ADC_4
.
Warning
Unlike the Arduino, the Pico analog inputs should not exceed a 3.3V voltage. This could damage or even destroy the ADC inputs. Therefore, it is essential to check not to use a 5V supply voltage to measure the value of a sensor. There are solutions to limit the ADC input voltage to 3.3V.
Reading an analog input from Pico with MicroPython.
The analog input voltage is measured using the
ADC
submodule of the
machine
module. Like with PWM, we associate a physical pin with the object
ADC
.
from machine import Pin, ADC
# Pin definitions
adc_pin = Pin(26, mode=Pin.IN)
adc = ADC(adc_pin)
Remember to import the ADC submodule.
You can also create an
ADC
object by specifying the ADC channel digit you want to use.
from machine import ADC
adc = ADC(0) # Select the ADC_0 ()
Once you have configured an analog input in MicroPython, you can read the analog value using the
read_u16()
function on the Raspberry Pi Pico.
from machine import Pin, ADC
adc = ADC(Pin(26, mode=Pin.IN))
print(adc.read_u16())
It will be necessary to apply a formula to have value measured in volts:
Measure the internal temperature of the Raspberry Pi Pico
The Raspberry Pi Pico has an internal temperature sensor to measure the temperature of the RP2040 chip. Although not very reliable, it does provide insight into the temperature of the CPU (just like on computers). This sensor is directly connected to the
ADC_4
input of the ADC.
- To measure the temperature, you must:
-
-
Retrieve the raw analog value of the temperature sensor available on channel 4 of the ADC
-
Convert this value to voltage
-
Use a formula given in the RP240 documentation to convert this voltage to temperature (in ° C)
-
from machine import ADC
import time
temp_sensor = ADC(4)
while True:
adc_voltage = temp_sensor.read_u16() * 3.3 / 65535
cpu_temp = 27 - (adc_voltage - 0.706)/0.001721 # Formula given in RP2040 Datasheet
print(cpu_temp)
time.sleep_ms(1_000)
Note
You can see the temperature change by putting your finger on the RP2040 chip.
REPL console output:
32.19402
32.19402
32.66216
31.72584
33.13027
33.59842
34.06656
34.06656
34.53474
34.06656
Project: Control the intensity of an LED via a potentiometer
We will use PWM and ADC with MicroPython to control the LED brightness.
Schematic:
Note
Consider putting a resistor in series with the LED to prevent burning. (330 Ω, for example)
For reading the knob position of the potentiometer only :
from machine import Pin, ADC
import time
# Create an ADC object linked to pin 26
adc = ADC(Pin(26, mode=Pin.IN))
while True:
# Read ADC and convert to voltage
val = adc.read_u16()
val = val * (3.3 / 65535)
print(round(val, 2), "V") # Keep only 2 digits
# Wait a bit before taking another reading
time.sleep_ms(100)
To read knob position and change the brightness:
from machine import Pin, ADC, PWM
import time
# Create a PWM object linked to pin 15
pwm_led = PWM(Pin(15,mode=Pin.OUT))
pwm_led.freq(1_000)
# Create an ADC object linked to pin 26
adc = ADC(Pin(26, mode=Pin.IN))
while True:
val = adc.read_u16()
pwm_led.duty_u16(val)
time.sleep_ms(10)