If you would like to accurately log the temperature on the FunHouse using the onboard environmental sensors, one potential issue you may notice is that the sensors are near the power supply. The sensors are on an area of the board that is cut out to physically separate them from the power supply components and help mitigate the heating. This helps to an extent, but it is still affected. We wanted to keep the sensors low on the PCB (since heat rises) and also far away from the TFT backlight since it is also very warm.
There are a few things you can do to make the temperature more accurate, which we’ll cover in this example. Mostly we will keep the board asleep as much as possible and keep the backlight off (or dim) to conserve power.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
An updated guide is available in the Adafruit Learning System: Creating FunHouse Projects with CircuitPython. This guide has been updated to include a new Temperature Logger Example page.