AKM Semiconductor appears to be the supplier for the magnetic compass in the iPhone 3Gs.
The likely part is the AK8973 3-Axis compass chip. Compared to the insanely expensive Honeywell devices that superficially appear to work the same way, this looks like it might make a good addition to a 6DOF navigation module, for gyro compensation, and static heading/orientation input.
So far I have been unable to find the part in stock any where, but then again Apple probably is absorbing all the capacity that AKM has for the time being, assuming this is really the chip being used.
If I can get my paws on these I am definitely going to build a breakout board…
Now if you guys can get these chips, I am fairly sure that there would be demand for them. So far as I can tell Nu Horizons lists them at $6 - $7 but it’s not clear from their listing what quantity is required to get that price, and as of today they have none in stock.
Cheers
It appears on par with the HMC5843 (see other thread).
If it is cheaper, then sure, it would be great if Sparkfun could get this could get this in.
Soon I want to get my hands on a decent I2C 3-axis compass.
m1tch37:
It appears on par with the HMC5843 (see other thread).
If it is cheaper, then sure, it would be great if Sparkfun could get this could get this in.
Soon I want to get my hands on a decent I2C 3-axis compass.
After looking at the specs for the HMC5843 and the AK8973 I think the honeywell is a much better chip, but the AKM is likely to be less than 1/3 the cost. (if and when they show up where we can get them in singles quantities. ) The main reason to use the HMC5843 would be the 12-bit ADC rather than the AK8973’s 8-bit ADC.
It seems the AK8973 was spec’d for toys and games rather than navigation.
I’m really interested in this compass…
AK8973: @ nuhorizons.com (7$ min 3000 units)
Proteus:
I’m really interested in this compass…
AK8973: (7$ @ 3000 units)
Yeah, this is the same info I looked at when I posed before:
14 week lead time for any quantity, zero available at any quantity.
It’s not looking good for getting these any time soon.
The Honeywell chips, if I were to order today from Digikey, would ship in August. Shrug
BTW please take that link out… it’s breaking the format of the forum layout
Thanks 
I’m currently using the honeywell chip and am looking for a cheaper solution and ran across this guy. i could use a thousand or so over the next 6 months, but am not looking to float the full 37k to get them. kind of defeats the purpose. reply if you’re interested and can wait the lead time.
camera_guy:
I’m currently using the honeywell chip and am looking for a cheaper solution and ran across this guy. i could use a thousand or so over the next 6 months, but am not looking to float the full 37k to get them. kind of defeats the purpose. reply if you’re interested and can wait the lead time.
Hmm I’ll check my finances… I might be willing to buy a handful…
Check out this product from ATMEL:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools … ly_id=2138
It is a carrier for an AK8975 3 axis i2c compass, a Bosch BMA150 3 axis i2c accelerometer, and a InvenSense ITG3200 3 axis i2c gyro. That’s a 9DOF for $54… I bought one- delivered in one week from Norway. I could find datasheets readily for the BMA150 and ITG3200, but the AK8975 I have had no luck. From what I can read though it is software compatible with the AK8973, so I will give it a crack with the AK8973 datasheet.
Have fun!
Hello,
i was wondering if it was possible using the AMTEL ATAVRSBIN1(ACCEL+GYRO+COMPASS) on a TI LaunchPad. Anybody has an idea about this?
Thank you in andvance!
The ATAVRSBIN1 communicates by i2C, so any MCU platform capable of I2C master is supportable. You would have to write your own drivers though based on the manufacturer datasheets.
Possibly a better supported solution is to buy the chips themselves and make you own carrier board. Check out the freeimu project http://www.varesano.net/projects/hardware/FreeIMU, which uses ITG3200, ADXL345, and HMC5843. All those have plenty of diver examples for arduino, mbed, maple.
I personally have standardized my own development work on the MBED platform http://mbed.org/. It’s $65 or so for the MCU board, but the real value is the wealth of pre-written drivers and sample code for devices such as these, and the web-based compiler- you don’t have to worry about toolchains and ide configurations.