Adafruit DAC6578 Breakout – 8 x Channel 10-bit I2C DAC

If you’ve ever said to yourself, ‘Gee, I wish I had eight 10-bit DACs that came in a single package’, well I have good news. The Adafruit DAC6578 Breakout is the answer to your wishes! Within its little package, the DAC6578 has eight 10-bit DACs for whatever voltage setting needs you may have, easily controlled over I2C.

The DAC6578 can easily work with 3.3V or 5V power and logic so no matter what microcontroller/microcomputer you’re using, you’ll get full-range output. Note that this DAC is ‘ratiometric’ – that means that 0 is ground and 4095 is whatever the Vref voltage is. By default, the Vref is tied to the power pin, but you could cut a jumper to set the top voltage to anything between 0 and the power pin. E.g. if you want a precision 4.095V reference, you’ll need to power with 5V, and provide 4.095V on the VRef pin.

The breakout for the DAC6578 is populated with the required support circuitry to use it with your microcontroller of choice or Blinka-supported computer. The SparkFun Qwiic-compatible STEMMA QT JST SH connectors ease the process of connecting the DAC6578 to your project and allows you to easily share an I2C bus with other STEMMA QT, Qwiic, Grove, or other compatible sensors. QT Cable is not included, but we have a variety in the shop. 

Our drivers, wiring diagrams, and example code for Arduino, CircuitPython, and Python make it easy to get started so you can get rolling with your project instead of figuring out how to wire things or get the code working.

Specifications

DAC6578 Specifications:

• Glitch Energy: 0.15nV-s
• Power-On Reset to Zero Scale
• Ultra-Low Power Operation: 0.13mA/ch at 5V
• Wide Power-Supply Range: +2.7V to +5.5V
• 2-Wire Serial Interface
• Temperature Range: –40°C to +125°C

Resources

• Primary Guide: Adafruit DACx578 – 8 x Channel I2C DAC
• JP’s Product Pick of the Week – DAC6578 Breakout 8 x Channel 10-bit I2C DAC