A bidirectional logic level converter (for I2C)

When working with sensors and microcontroller or arduino's, you'll need a level converter as a lot of sensors are designed for 3,3V and most microcontrollers will be 5V.

I know that they can be bought cheaply at sparkfun and others but when you only want to buy one converter you might pay more for the shipping than for the actual thing. And besides that, it is a simple thing to make.

You only need two bss138 mosfets, four 10k resistors, two sets of male headerpins and a pcb or a piece of veroboard.

Step 1: The circuit.

There is not much to tell about te construction of this circuit. Connect the gates directly to 3,3V, the sources via a 10K resistor to 3,3V and the drains via a 10K resistor to 5V.

Then make yourself a nice PCB-layout or find yourself a small piece of leftover veroboard and head to the next step.

Comments

[mpep]

Hi, please advise which pins are for what? My crystal ball has broken. ;-)

[janw]

look at the last picture in the last step. It should be there. SDA and SCL can be exchanged without problem aslong as you do it on both sides of the converter.

[mathieulj]

Nice and simple does the trick.

[jeff-o]

Thanks for this - very useful!