HX711 - Load Cell Amplifier - (AD36800)

Description:

The Load Cell Amplifier is a small board for the HX711 IC that allows for easy reading of load cells to measure weight. By connecting the amplifier to your microcontroller, you will be able to read changes in the load cell's resistance, and with a bit of calibration, you will be able to get very accurate weight measurements. This can be very useful for creating your own industrial scale, process control, or simple presence detection.

The HX711 uses a two-wire interface (clock and data) for communication. Any microcontroller's GPIO pins should work, and numerous libraries have been written, making it easy to read data from the HX711. Check the hookup guide below for more information.

Load cells use a Wheatstone bridge of four wires to connect to the HX711. These are commonly colored RED, BLK, WHT, GRN, and YLW. Each color corresponds to the conventional color code for load cells:

- Red (Excitation+ or VCC)

- Black (Excitation- or GND)

- White (Amplifier+, Signal+, or Output+)

- Green (A-, S-, or O-)

- Yellow (Shield)

The YLW pin acts as an optional input that is not connected to the strain gauge but is used for grounding and shielding against EMI (electromagnetic interference). Please note that some load cells may have slight variations in their color coding.

Features:

- Operation Voltage: 2.7V-5V

- Operation Current: < 1.5mA

- Selectable 10SPS or 80SPS output data rate

- Simultaneous 50 and 60Hz supply rejection

Reference Links:

- Hookup Guide

- Getting Started with Load Cells

- Datasheet (HX711)

- GitHub (Design Files & Example Code)

- GitHub (Library)