MPU6050 with Nordic nRF52840 DK

Wiring for the MPU6050 (GY-521) accelerometer + gyro on the Nordic nRF52840 DK (nRF52840-QIAA, 3.3 V logic), chosen with the same pin rules BoardPilot uses: default buses first, and no pins that are used for flash, USB, the debugger or booting.

Wiring

Check before you power it on

• Supply: 5 V from the 5V pin.
• I2C uses the board’s default pins P0.26 (SDA) and P0.27 (SCL). Most modules include pull-up resistors; if the part is not found, check them and swap-test SDA/SCL.
• To make sure it is the real chip, read register 0x75: a genuine part answers 0x68.

Test code (Arduino)

#include <Wire.h>

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Wire.begin();  // SDA = P0.26, SCL = P0.27 (the board's default I2C pins)
  Wire.beginTransmission(0x68);
  bool found = Wire.endTransmission() == 0;
  Serial.println(found ? "MPU6050 (GY-521) accelerometer + gyro found at 0x68" : "Not found: check power, GND and SDA/SCL");
}

void loop() {}

Arduino board: adafruit:nrf52:pca10056. Plug USB into the port on the short edge (interface MCU, J2) and set the power switch to ON; before the first Arduino sketch, burn the Adafruit bootloader and SoftDevice once.

Questions

Which Nordic nRF52840 DK pins do I use for the MPU6050?

VCC → 5V, GND → GND, SCL → P0.27, SDA → P0.26, INT → P1.03.

Does the MPU6050 work with the Nordic nRF52840 DK at 3.3 V?

Yes: the MPU6050 runs at 3.3-5 V and the Nordic nRF52840 DK uses 3.3 V signals, so no level shifting is needed.

What is the I2C address of the MPU6050?

0x68 or 0x69. An I2C scan (BoardPilot does it for you) shows which one your module uses.

Full Nordic nRF52840 DK pinout · MPU6050 (GY-521) accelerometer + gyro: all pins and data

The MPU6050 on other boards

ESP32 DevKit Arduino Mega 2560 R3 Arduino Nano Arduino Uno R3 WeAct Black Pill STM32F411CE ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1 ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1 NUCLEO-F401RE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 Raspberry Pi Pico W Raspberry Pi Pico Teensy 4.1

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