XIAO ESP32S3 + HX711 based load celll

Products & Technology XIAO
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1

Dear all,

new (part) project,new problems… I wish ppl in this line of field would start making stuff which just works or follows documentation…

Case in point, a load cell 20kg with a HX 711 amplifier:
https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/1005007205148171.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.4.32f279d2gEcWru&gatewayAdapt=glo2nld

Thing simply does not work. The load cell has 4 wires, which are connected to the board. The board then has GND DT SCK and VPP.

Connected GND to ground on the ESP, VPP to the +5V, DT to pin 2, SCK to pin 3.

Installed the HX711 library (the bogdan one), run example… does not work. HX711 not found.

The board should pull the data pin down when it’s ready. However, measuring it shows near 5v.

Readig… the HX711 needs pulldowns. So added to the code:
pinMode(LOADCELL_DOUT_PIN, INPUT_PULLDOWN);
pinMode(LOADCELL_SCK_PIN, INPUT_PULLDOWN);

This solves the hx711 not found issue. However I still do not get any measurement from it.

Then I found this:

I have this board:

image
image690×419 60.4 KB

(foto from that thread, not my board)

In that thread it claims this board has an open e-, which is correct. They claim this should be connected to GND. SO i did that. No change.

I’m measuring the correct voltages from the load cell itself (as in beforementioned topic).

Am I using the wrong pins on the arduino?

Anyone have this combo working? There are several pages with ppl who have it work, without issues. Is my HX711 broken?

2

well…again I solved it myself. I only connected the ground, but didn’t separate out 5v and 3.3v on the board. So I desoldered the chip using my heatgun, scratched out the link between pin 1 and pin 16, resoldered the chip on the board, then at C8 (c5) on my board I scratched out the link tot pin 16, thus completely isolating pin 16. Then I connected pin 1 to C8 again for 5v.

Lastly I mounted 1 100nf decoupling cap on the GND at one side and on pin 16 on the other side. Also I connected p16 to 3.3v.

Now it works.

Too much jank for me. I ordered the Adafruit HX711 board, which supports 3.3v out of the box.

However, it does work now.

3

dude… dont put questions about alliexpress crap on the Seeed channel… we will try to help you if you can… but dont put bad words on here about products that are not Seeed… buy genuine products from Seeed store…

1 Like
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I am trying to get seeed crap to work with normal other electronics.

seeed = unsupported crap. Alieexpress has better support.

6

As I said. No support. It does have a lot of ego’s, like glasso’s. Who thinks he’s God gift to tinkerers.

7

If DT stays high all the time:

  • Try connecting DT through a 10kΩ resistor to GND externally — not just using INPUT_PULLDOWN.

Or just add:

pinMode(DOUT, INPUT); // Remove pulldown if it conflicts

Even if you’re using Bogdan’s, test with HX711 by Rob Tillaart or SparkFun’s — the initialization timing and pin handling differs slightly.
For more info about load cells in general, you can see here:

8

Thanks for your anwer. It was staying high because of the voltage issue. The board I had was 5v only, p1 and p16 of the chip were both hooked to 5v.

After I changed that and make p1 5v and p16 3.3v (incuding decoupling cap), it worked.

1 Like
9

good thing i didnt get mad at you and delete this whole post… we would have forever thought you were an A-hole

14

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