sparkfun DEV-16138 Technical document

SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus Hookup Guide
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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 I C 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.
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SparkFun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus
 DEV-16138
Product Showcase: SparkFun Thing Plus Qwiic ShieldProduct Showcase: SparkFun Thing Plus Qwiic Shield

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:
You will also need some headers to solder to both your Thing Plus and Qwiic Shield:
SparkFun Thing Plus - ESP32 WROOM
 WRL-15663
SparkFun Thing Plus - Artemis
 WRL-15574
SparkFun Thing Plus - SAMD51
 DEV-14713
Break Away Headers - Straight Female Headers

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:
 PRT-00116  PRT-00115
Break Away Headers - Long
 PRT-10158
Feather Stackable Header Kit
 PRT-15187
SparkFun GPS Breakout - NEO-M9N, U.FL
(Qwiic)
 GPS-15712
SparkFun High Precision Temperature Sensor -
TMP117 (Qwiic)
 SEN-15805
SparkFun Qwiic Motor Driver
 ROB-15451
SparkFun Proximity Sensor Breakout - 20cm,
VCNL4040 (Qwiic)
 SEN-15177

You will need some of our Qwiic cables to connect your devices to the shield. Below are a few options:
Lastly, if you want to use a non-Qwiic I C device, these adapters help to convert it to a Qwiic connector:
Qwiic Cable - 100mm
 PRT-14427
Qwiic Cable - 200mm
 PRT-14428
Qwiic Cable - 50mm
 PRT-14426
Qwiic Cable - 500mm
 PRT-14429
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Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)
 PRT-14425
SparkFun Qwiic Adapter
 DEV-14495
Qwiic Cable - Female Jumper (4-pin)
 CAB-14988

Required Tools
You will need a soldering iron, solder, and general soldering accessories to solder the header pins to the Qwiic
shields:
Suggested Reading
If you aren't familiar with the Qwiic system, we recommend reading here for an overview:
Qwiic Connect System
We would also recommend taking a look at the following tutorials if you aren't familiar with them:
Soldering Iron - 30W (US, 110V)
 TOL-09507
Solder Lead Free - 15-gram Tube
 TOL-09163
How to Solder: Through-Hole Soldering
This tutorial covers everything you need to know about
through-hole soldering.
Arduino Shields
All things Arduino Shields. What they are and how to
assemble them.

Hardware Overview
Qwiic Connectors
The Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus has four Qwiic connectors on it. The two on the edges are the standard horizontal
connectors and the two in the middle are vertical connectors.
I C Jumper
I2C
An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded
communications protocols in use today.
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This jumper is a little different than our normal I C pull up jumpers as it is open by default. The jumper only needs
to be closed if your slave device does not have pull up resistors. Essentially all SparkFun I C breakouts come with
pull up resistors on them so if you are using a Qwiic I C device or another SparkFun I C device, you can most
likely leave it open. When closed, the SDA and SCL lines are pulled to 3.3V by 4.7K resistors. If you have never
worked with solder jumpers before, check out this tutorial for some tips and tricks for working with them.
Board Dimensions
The shield measures 2.00in x 0.90in (50.8mm x 22.86mm) and has four mounting holes that fit a 4-40 screw.
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Hardware Assembly
All you need to get started using the Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus is to solder whichever headers you choose to the
shield and, if necessary, to your Thing Plus (or compatible board). If you have never worked with an Arduino
Shield before or need some tips, our Arduino Shields Tutorial provides detailed instructions on how to assemble
and use them.
Once you have soldered headers to your shield and connected it to your Thing Plus, it's time to start connecting
Qwiic devices! Below you can see the Qwiic Shield connected to a SparkFun Thing Plus - SAMD51 using the
Feather Stackable Header Kit along with a couple of Qwiic Devices chained to it.
Resources and Going Further
For more information, take a look at the resources below.
Schematic (PDF)
Eagle Files (ZIP)
Board Dimensions
GitHub Repository
Qwiic System Landing Page
SFE Product Showcase
If you are having trouble getting your Qwiic devices to connect using your newly assembled Qwiic Shield, you may
want to take a look at these tutorials for help troubleshooting and reworking your shield.
Troubleshooting Tips - Hardware Checks

Arduino Shields Tutorial
Now that you have your Qwiic Shield ready to go, it's time to check out some Qwiic-enabled products. Below are a
few to get started.
Before you go, here are some other tutorials using the Qwiic Connect System you may want to look through:
SparkFun Proximity Sensor Breakout - 20cm,
VCNL4040 (Qwiic)
 SEN-15177
SparkFun Inventor's Kit Guidebook - v4.1
 BOK-15478
Qwiic Arcade - Blue
 SPX-15592
SparkFun moto:bit - micro:bit Carrier Board
(Qwiic)
 DEV-15713
XBee3 Thing Plus Hookup Guide
Get started with SparkFun's XBee3 Thing Plus - both
the u.FL as well as the PCB antenna versions.
Qwiic IR Array (MLX90640) Hookup Guide
The Melexis MLX90640 contains a 32x24 array of
thermopile sensors creating, in essence, a low
resolution thermal imaging camera. In this guide, we’ll
go over how to connect your Qwiic Infrared Array with
MLX90640 and get it communicating with Processing
to produce a nice thermal image.

Qwiic UV Sensor (VEML6075) Hookup Guide
Learn how to connect your VEML6075 UV Sensor and
figure out just when you should put some sunscreen
on.
Qwiic Kit for Raspberry Pi Hookup Guide
Get started with the CCS811, BME280, VCNL4040,
and microOLED via I2C using the Qwiic system and
Python on a Raspberry Pi! Take sensor readings from
the enviroment and display them on the microOLED,
serial terminal, or the cloud with Cayenne!