Adafruit Universal Thermocouple Amplifier MAX31856 Breakout

Thermocouples are very sensitive, requiring a good amplifier with a cold-compensation reference, as well as calculations to handle any non-linearities. For a long time we've suggested our MAX31855K breakout, which works great but is only for K-type thermocouples. Now we're happy to offer a great new thermocouple amplifier/converter that can handle just about any type of thermocouple, and even has the ability to give you notification when the temperature goes out of range, or a fault occurs. Very fancy!

This converter communicates over 4-wire SPI and can interface with any K, J, N, R, S, T, E, or B type thermocouple.

This breakout does everything for you, and can be easily interfaced with any microcontroller, even one without an analog input. This breakout board has the chip itself, a 3.3V regulator and level shifting circuitry, all assembled and tested. Comes with a 2 pin terminal block (for connecting to the thermocouple) and pin header (to plug into any breadboard or perfboard). We even added inline resistors and a filter capacitor on-board for better stability, as recommended by Maxim. Goes great with our 1m K-type thermocouple or any other thermocouple, really!

• Works with any K, J, N, R, S, T, E, or B type thermocouple
• -210°C to +1800°C output in 0.0078125° resolution - note that many thermocouples have about ±2°C to ±6°C accuracy or worse depending on the temperature and type, so the resolution will be a lot better than the accuracy!
• Internal temperature reading
• 3.3 to 5v power supply and logic level compliant!
• SPI data requires any 4 digital I/O pins

Please note: this does not include a thermocouple! Also, the terminal blocks included with your product may be blue or black.

Check out our tutorial for wiring diagrams, files, software and more!

Technical Details