Tag Archives: Accelerometers

ADXL345

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The ADXL345 is a MEMS accelerometer made by Analog Devices. It’s a popular device among hobbyists because of its low cost, easy availability and rich feature set. But apparently you should be careful about where you buy them: one of my readers ended up with a bunch of ADXL345s that had significant offsets, measurement axes that didn’t work at all, and an inoperative freefall detection mode. After spending lots of time trying to get them to work, he decided to send them to me instead and hopefully find out what was wrong with them.

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ST LIS3DH Accelerometer

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The LIS3DH is an accelerometer, designed and manufactured by STMicroelectronics. Like most accelerometers today it is a MEMS device (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), which means the sensing function is made from silicon and integrated into an IC process. Special etching techniques are used to create tiny moving parts that can bend in certain directions, along with sensors that can detect that movement.

MEMS accelerometers are used in many electronic devices: your phone that detects whether you’re holding it horizontally or vertically, your games console that can sense which way you’re moving the controller, or your car that can detect the speed and direction in which you’ve just crashed so it can properly deploy the airbag.

The LIS3DH is housed in a little LGA package that measures just 3 x 3 mm2. Oddly there’s no ST logo or marking on the package. The “ON5nn” production code could actually trick you into thinking this is an ONSemi part.

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