Adafruit Universal Thermocouple Amplifier MAX31856 Breakout

by Adafruit

This great thermocouple amplifier/converter 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!

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 the MAX31855K breakout, which works great but is only for K-type thermocouples

This converter communicates over 4-wire SPI and can interface with any K, J, N, R, S, T, E, or 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). Adafruit 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!

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

TECHNICAL DETAILS