This is a library for the HSCDTD008A geomagnetic sensor by Alps Alpine.
It is one of the cheapest geomagnetic / magneto sensors available and seems to be good enough for many home projects. However, no drivers seem to be available for this chip.
| Feature | Arduino | C Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Sensor initialization | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Stand-by mode | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Measurement Force State | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Measurement Normal State1 | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Temperature compensation | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Offset calibration | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Data Ready Pin | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Offset Drift | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Self test | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| FIFO | ❌ | ❌2 |
| Soft reset | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Data Resolution3 | ❌ | ❌ |
1 - Normal state allows the user to read sensor data without explicitly calling start_measurement
2 - The driver does define functions to configure FIFO configuration. However, more work is needed to properly support it.
3 - Driver is hard-coded to use 15bit resolution
This driver is written in C, with a wrapper for C++ so that it can be used in Arduino projects. The reason for this is that with many projects I have worked on in the past, only C++ drivers were available. This is fine for just Arduino projects, but whenever you are working on a C project, it can be quite frustrating if there is no C driver you can use as an example.
For this reason, all logic operations are implemented in C, with the C++ layer only changing up the interface, but not implementing any logic. The goal is to keep this separation even for features added in the future.
In platform.hfunctions are defined for I2C communication as well as for system sleep. This allows the driver to be used on non Arduino platforms.
The Arduino platform is natively supported, and the library can be downloaded through the Arduino Library manager (Library page). All Arduino platforms should be supported. However, support has only been verified for an Arduino Uno, if you find that the library does not work for a board or series of boards, please raise an issue on GitHub.