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 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). 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