sparkfun Qwiic Shield for Thing Plus 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-16790
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:
The Qwiic Shield includes a set of stackable headers to fit the Thing Plus footprint but you may also need some
headers to solder to your Thing Plus. Or if you would prefer to use another header type for your shield assembly
we've listed a few options below:
SparkFun Thing Plus - ESP32 WROOM
 WRL-15663
SparkFun Thing Plus - SAMD51
 DEV-14713
SparkFun Thing Plus - Artemis
 WRL-15574

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:
Break Away Headers - Straight
 PRT-00116
Female Headers
 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

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:
SparkFun Qwiic Motor Driver
 ROB-15451
SparkFun Proximity Sensor Breakout - 20cm,
VCNL4040 (Qwiic)
 SEN-15177
Qwiic Cable - 100mm
 PRT-14427
Qwiic Cable - 200mm
 PRT-14428
Qwiic Cable - 500mm
 PRT-14429
Qwiic Cable - 50mm
 PRT-14426
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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:
Qwiic Cable - Breadboard Jumper (4-pin)
 PRT-14425
SparkFun Qwiic Adapter
 DEV-14495
Qwiic Cable - Female Jumper (4-pin)
 CAB-14988
Solder Lead Free - 15-gram Tube
 TOL-09163
Soldering Iron - 30W (US, 110V)
 TOL-09507

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.
How to Solder: Through-Hole Soldering
This tutorial covers everything you need to know about
through-hole soldering.
I2C
An introduction to I2C, one of the main embedded
communications protocols in use today.
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I C Jumper
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 the included stackable headers or
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 included with the shield 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 IR Array Breakout - 110 Degree FOV,
MLX90640 (Qwiic)
 SEN-14843
SparkFun Qwiic Cable Kit
 KIT-15081
SparkFun Transparent Graphical OLED
Breakout (Qwiic)
 LCD-15173
SparkFun RED-V RedBoard - SiFive RISC-V
FE310 SoC
 DEV-15594
Qwiic Human Presence Sensor (AK9753)
Hookup Guide
How to get started with your Qwiic enabled AK9753
Human Presence Sensor.
Qwiic Distance Sensor (VL53L1X) Hookup
Guide
The Qwiic VL53L1X time of flight sensor is capable of
several modes, as well as having a range of 4M. Let's
hook it up and find out just how far away that thing over
there is.

SparkFun GPS Breakout (ZOE-M8Q and SAM-
M8Q) Hookup Guide
The SparkFun ZOE-M8Q and SAM-M8Q are two
similarly powerful GPS units but with different project
applications. We'll compare both chips before getting
each up and running.
SparkFun AS3935 Lightning Detector Hookup
Guide (v20)
Are you worried about the looming clouds in the
distance, how far away is that storm exactly? Add
lightning detection with the AS3935 to your next
weather station or your next bike ride!