Hi!
I have a MMA8452Q with the built-in Qwiic connector hooked up to my Thing Plus board. However, running any example sketches from the MMA8452Q library, accel.begin() or accel.init() return false and I get the “Not Connected. Please check connections and read the hookup guide” message. (I checked the readRegister(WHO_AM_I) result inside the library, and it’s 0; I also ran an i2c bus scan sketch and it’s not finding any devices.)
The board is working fine, I just ran some wifi test sketches with it.
Attached is a photo of my connection. Qwiic is supposed to be foolproof, but possibly I am an incalculably large fool?
Hi fonograph,
My guess is it is a bad connection to the MMA8452Q either from a bad cable or a bad connector on your accelerometer breakout. Do you by chance have any other Qwiic breakouts or Qwiic cables to test with? That would be the easiest way to test the connection. Also, just to eliminate the possibility of a bad connector, try switching to the other Qwiic connector on your accelerometer and see if that helps. If you do not have any other Qwiic cables/devices and if you have a multimeter, try checking for proper voltage on the 3.3V pin broken out on the side of your Qwiic Accelerometer. Similarly, try probing for continuity on your I2C pins between the breakout and your ESP32 Thing Plus.
If you do not have either a multimeter or other Qwiic devices/cables to test with, let me know and we can try working something else out to troubleshoot.
Hi Mark, thanks for the reply.
Unfortunately these are my only Qwiic components. However:
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I tried both connectors on the accelerometer, no luck.
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I confirmed proper voltage on the breakout.
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I confirmed continuity between SDA/SCL on the breakout and the pins on the Thing.
As it happens while I testing voltage, something seems to have shorted and popped on the Thing. Not sure if there was an underlying defect or anything that was causing the problem, but either way I guess I’m picking up a new Thing and and another accelerometer while I’m at it. I’ll let you know if that doesn’t solve things! 
Interesting. I am not sure what the problem would be with the accelerometer other than it being defective since the connection is fine and you are getting proper voltage to it. The issue with the ESP32 Thing Plus might be related to a known issue. If you plug the ESP32 Thing Plus in via USB, do you notice the CP2102N USB-to-Serial converter heating up excessively? If so, the board is most likely defective and we would be happy to help you out. Assuming you purchased the boards directly from SparkFun, please fill out the form on [this page and in the “Why do you want an RMA?” box, fill in a brief description of the issue and link to this forum topic and we will respond with further instructions.](https://www.sparkfun.com/rma)
Yup, that’s the bit that’s heating up. I purchased through Digikey so I’ll get in touch with them about an exchange.
That would be the issue I mentioned in my previous post. DigiKey’s support is normally excellent but just in case, if you have any problems contacting them, please send me a private message and we can work something out.
We’ll call this topic resolved for now but if you run into any other problems with the MMA8452Q or have any questions about it, let us know and we would be happy to help as much as we can.
I just got new everything — Thing, accelerometer, cable — and I’m still having the same problem. Same deal, I confirmed voltage on the 3.3v pin and continuity on SCL/SCA. Any other ideas?
Never mind, finally got it working! I just had to set the board to Adafruit ESP32 Feather instead of Sparkfun ESP32 Thing – which to be fair, is exactly what the hookup guide said to do. Thanks for your help!
Awesome! Thanks for the update. As always, if you have any other issues with or questions about either of these or other SparkFun products you are using, let us know and we would be happy to help (if you have questions about another product, please create a new topic).
