RGB Potentiometer Breakout

This I2C breakout uses its clever Nuvoton microcontroller to help you easily incorporate a digital linear potentiometer into your project. You can directly control the RGB LED inside the pot.

Potentiometers have a limited range of motion and are good for dials that benefit from having a set start and end point.

You can attach it to your Pi's GPIO directly or via a breadboard with the included headers, but it's also compatible with Pimoroni Breakout Garden, which makes it easy to use several different breakouts at the same time.

Specifications

• Nuvoton MS51 microcontroller with built-in 12-bit Analog to Digital Converter (datasheet / Technical Reference Manual)
• Linear potentiometer (datasheet / drawing)
• RGB LED (controllable by PWM)
• I2C interface, with a default address of 0x0E
• 3V to 5V compatible
• Reverse polarity protection
• Raspberry Pi-compatible pinout (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9)
• Compatible with Raspberry Pi (Python library)
• Compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico (C++/MicroPython libraries)

Kit includes

• RGB Potentiometer Breakout (pre-assembled)
• 1x5 straight male header
• 1x5 right angle female header

Pimoroni designed this breakout board so that you can solder on the piece of right angle female header and pop it straight onto the bottom left 5 pins on your Raspberry Pi's GPIO header (pins 1, 3, 5, 7, 9).

Software

RGB Potentiometer Breakout uses the same Python library as our IO Expander Breakout - the example shows you how to read the pot and control the LED.

You can also use this breakout with Raspberry Pi Pico and other RP2040 boards, using C++ or MicroPython.

Note

1. The default I2C address is 0x0E, but it's possible to change this in software if you'd like to use multiple RGB Potentiometer Breakouts, or avoid conflicts with other I2C devices. The new address will be saved in flash memory, so will persist if unpowered.
2. This board uses a Nuvoton MCU with our custom firmware you can substitute your own firmware to change the way this board works and have a super cheap and capable microcontroller.