Find a Retailer SHOP PRODUCT MENU BLOG find products, tutorials, etc... HOME / P R O D U C T C A T E G O R I E S LEARN 0 SUPPORT LOG IN EDUCATION / LEVEL SHIFTERS / S P A R K F U N L O G I C L E V E L C O N V E R T E R - B I - D I R E C T I O N A L SparkFun Logic Level Converter - BiDirectional B O B - 1 2 0 0 9 ROHS 84 DESCRIPTION FEATURES DOCUMENTS 0.63 x 0.52" (16.05 x 13.33mm) images are CC BY 2.0 SHARE 3D Download: Sketchup, STL, Blender Previous Versions SparkFun Logic Level Converter - Bi-Directional Product Help and Resources SUPPORT TIPS TUTORIALS SKILLS NEEDED MicroView Digital Compass OCTOBER 24, 2016 Build a portable digital compass using the SparkFun MicroView and the MAG3110 Magnetometer Breakout. COMMENTS 45 REVIEWS 84 Need Help? REGISTER FORUM Customer Reviews 4.6 out of 5 Based on 84 ratings: 5 star 54 4 star 27 3 star 1 2 star 2 1 star 0 Currently viewing all customer reviews. 6 of 6 found this helpful: Great to talk to 3.3v device from 5V Arduino about 3 years ago by Member #307348 verified purchaser Used this with an Arduino UNO to talk to a 3.3v ESP8266. Been working for a few hours and no magic smoke has left so I think that's a good sign. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Perfect problem solver for voltage level shifting. about 3 years ago by Member #13807 verified purchaser It was a perfect solution for me. I had been using the Raspberry Pi which uses 3.3V on its GPIO buss. Really useful now that I am using a break out board with a FT245. Inexpensive, small, easy to use. 1 of 1 found this helpful: This thing converts logic levels, bi-directionally! about 3 years ago by MarmotXing verified purchaser It turned my 5v signal into a 3v signal! And vice versa! 2 of 2 found this helpful: Works fine, nice design, priced right. about 3 years ago by Member #22666 verified purchaser Small systems today often incorporate a mix of peripheral sensors or actuators which operate on different logic levels. Especially 3.3 and 5 volt. It's easy enough to lash up your own bi-directional converter with a MOSFET and a couple resistors but at the price for this 4-channel device, why bother! An easy to use product and reasonably priced. 2 of 2 found this helpful: Switching Speed too slow about 2 years ago by Member #782766 verified purchaser I assume this logic level converter would work fine with i2c or some slower protocol, but, with high speed SPI the RC constant is far to slow with a 10k resistor. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Meets the description about 3 years ago by Member #633974 verified purchaser I am very pleased with the product and price. Just as described 3 of 3 found this helpful: Works for me on LocoNet 3.3-12v about 3 years ago by Member #114250 verified purchaser I am using a 3.3v micro-controller on my model railroad to interface DIY sensors and signals to Digitrax LocoNet runing at 12v. So far so good on a breadboard. Have yet to see what happens on a longer bus. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Easy to use - works great about 3 years ago by Member #344378 verified purchaser Quick soldering and easy to use. Straightforward and intuitive. 2 of 2 found this helpful: Diversification test about 2 years ago by Headhunter verified purchaser While these were built to translate the voltage levels of TTL data streams, I found additional applications, such as MOSFET driver to isolate the sensitive IO ports on our Beaglebone Blacks, bring raw encoder outputs down from 5 to 3v3, isolate a high voltage SSR from the IO's and raise the input from 3v3 to 5v for more positive actuation. These have one more use for us, We originally tried to drive some high power MOSFETs with poor response, but after adding pull up resistors to the gates, and IO static with a pull down resistor set internally on the pin, we get very reliable control. In fact bandwidth of transmitted PWMs has almost tripled. This MOSFET controls large 12vdc coils for a hydraulic valve. Control response went from 97% - 99.9% range to 74% 99.9%, giving tremendous improvement. Another feature is the bidirectional function of all ports. This allowed me to have two encoders on one chip. Two more permitted controlling 7 MOSFETS and one SSR with a tiny footprint of 1" x 2" x 3/4" including 33 wires for all three boards. That tiny footprint saved me. Like I mentioned earlier, there are 9 TO 220 transistors, three with their own heatsinks, six more bonded to a common sink, 9 screw terminals for wiring the MOSFETs to their coil leads all crammed on a tiny business card sized computer development proto board. Similar to this: DEV-12774 If it could drive those big Mossy"s by itself I'd give it 5 Stars. Bryan 1 of 1 found this helpful: easy and effective about 3 years ago by Kyleser verified purchaser Very simplistic and easy to use. I've used it on the Nokia Display and it works like a champ. For you can't beat it and should buy a couple for your project prototypes. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Works better than the competition! about a year ago by Member #679961 verified purchaser I got a competitors level shifter and it was terrible. I had no idea such a simple thing could be executed so terribly. After figuring out what the problem was I ordered a handful of these Sparkfun boards and won't go back. Rock solid especially with I2C and SPI. The competitor's product seemed to generate a lot of AC for very little work. Some things are just better from Colorado I guess. Nothing against New York City but then again, I am a country boy... 1 of 1 found this helpful: Works fine for 3.3v to 1.8v conversion about 3 years ago by ao2 verified purchaser I used this converter with a BeagleBone Black to flash a SPI EEPROM which needed 1.8v. Details and pictures on http://ao2.it/111 1 of 1 found this helpful: Perfect about 3 years ago by Member #650966 verified purchaser Long delivery time but perfect. 5 of 5 found this helpful: about 3 years ago by Chiel verified purchaser There is only one real limitation with these. namely that they rely on both devices to be "Open collector". which means the devices need to be able to actively pull the signal down to ground to work. not all devices do that so it is best to make sure they do this. if your device works by actively pulling the signal up and not down this won't work. However when used appropriately these are pretty fantastic. great for communication busses like I2C,1-wire and such. 1 of 1 found this helpful: about 3 years ago by Member #605759 verified purchaser Came fast, worked as expected. Data sheet easily found on the website. 1 of 1 found this helpful: It works.... about 3 years ago by Member #526435 verified purchaser ....because it was designed properly. Thanx. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Robust board, easy to use about 3 years ago by Member #500384 verified purchaser Easy to use board. Just set high and low reference voltage and instant bidirectional communications between board with different source voltages. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Exactly what I wanted! about 3 years ago by Member #612456 verified purchaser this was a simple board but suited perfectly for level shifting in breadboard prototypes! 1 of 1 found this helpful: Driving ST Micro SWIM Lines Down an 8 foot Cable about 3 years ago by Member #322079 verified purchaser ST Micro SWIM (Single Wire Interface Module) is not meant to go very far ... SparkFun Logic Level Converter Bi-Directional did the trick. I did have to decrease the pull up resistors on the HV side to about 1K to get enough "voom" to shape up the edges but it worked which is saving me from some serious headaches. 3 of 3 found this helpful: WS2811 LEDs about 3 years ago by Nomic verified purchaser I managed to get this working with a Teensy 3.1 and the OctoWS2811 library using 3.3v as the input voltage and 12v as the output to control a string of LEDs. This was straightforward once I realized that the Teensy's TTL output was at 3.3v and not the 5v I was using as the Teensy VIN. I've only tested a single strand of lights with this, however, so YMMV with different variations. 2 of 2 found this helpful: Works Great! about 3 years ago by Member #496669 verified purchaser I use it to convert logic levels from my Arduino and ESP8266. Haven't had any issues so far. 2 of 2 found this helpful: Works well about 3 years ago by Member #442329 verified purchaser Used to talk between my 5V arduino and a 12V IC. Needed to slow down the arduino SPI bus otherwise the converter would not be able to send an adequate signal. Once the bus was slowed down however, converter worked well. 1 of 1 found this helpful: Good,small package. about 3 years ago by Member #488671 verified purchaser I use these all the time in designs that require tight packaging. This works well for my needs. 1 of 1 found this helpful: about 3 years ago by Member #681097 verified purchaser Best size, 4lines. Good price. Would be usefull single an bi/lines modules too 2 of 2 found this helpful: Did just what I needed. about 3 years ago by Member #8833 verified purchaser I needed to get my Arduino (5V) talking to a Gumstix (1.8V) module via Serial/UART. This level converter does the trick. 2 of 2 found this helpful: Excellent level shifter about 3 years ago by Member #420461 verified purchaser small footprint, easy to use, reliable. I use it to interface 3.3 volt MCUs to 5 volt devices 4 of 4 found this helpful: Doing the job perfectly for my ESP8266 module. about 3 years ago by Member #650977 verified purchaser When it's critical for your component to have those back and forth signals pulled down to 3.3v from the standard UNO/MEGA board 5v signal, this is perfect. Thanks, Sparkfun Team! (NOTE: I should have ordered two though, one for the breadboard prototype, and one for the final project assembly.) 3 of 4 found this helpful: Does its job about 3 years ago by Member #635576 verified purchaser I got this to connect my Edison (1.8V I/O) to a Sparkfun LSM9DS0 breakout (3.3V I/O) using i2c. It's working perfectly, so far. My only complaint is that I wouldn't have needed this at all if the LSM9DS0 breakout had brought out the Vdd_IO pin rather than tying it to Vdd. 6 of 8 found this helpful: Doesn't work with WS2812 LED control IC about 3 years ago by Member #648524 verified purchaser I needed something to translate the 3.3V GPIO control signals coming out of my Raspberry Pi to 5V in order to control a WS2812 LED controller (specifically https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12877). The control signals for the WS2812 run at 800kHz, with an allowable delay time of +/-150ns. The data sheet for this converter says that the turn-on time, rise time, and delay time are all in the sub 40ns range-so it should work fine, right? Wrong. The WS2812 glitches like crazy when I try to control it through this logic level converter, so for my purposes, this part is useless. On the plus side, it was only , so it's not like I wasted much money. Worked great for my project about 2 years ago by Member #512476 verified purchaser I used the bi-directional board to connect a small OLED screen (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13003) to a RedBoard. The screen required 3.3 V signal from a variety of pins. Using this bi-directional board was very simple to make the necessary connections between pins on the redboard and OLED board. Works just as advertised, quick shipping, good value about 2 years ago by Member #831458 verified purchaser Works just as advertised, quick shipping, good value. The board is a high quality PCB, and the workmanship is great. No problems here. Works Perfectly about a year ago by Member #705913 verified purchaser I used it to level shift signals between a PSOC5 and a Playstation 2 controller. Worked like a charm. Needed for Arduino and BME280 about a year ago by jlmyra verified purchaser Used this with an Arduino communicating with two BME280's over I2C. Since they are strictly 3.3V devices, the bi-directional logic level convertor is required. It works great and is very small allowing it to be incorporated without taking up much space. Great Product about a year ago by Member #792466 verified purchaser I used this in a project to interface a FPGA and a SNES controller. Works flawlessly. Excellent! about a year ago by Member #833501 verified purchaser Works exactly as stated. Works just as expected about a year ago by Member #436375 verified purchaser Makes connecting to 3.3V from arduino extremely easy My enduser says, "They work!" last year by Member #262063 verified purchaser Though short on words, my enduser is a mechanical engineer who's long on usefulness. His succinct summary of this product is, "They work!" Exactly what it says on the tin about 9 months ago by Member #840131 verified purchaser It was easy to solder, and worked exactly as needed for the project I was working on. The only thing missing is if it could somehow only require one reference voltage as input, but that would likely increase board complexity compared to the simple workhorse we have here. Easy and Straightforward about 9 months ago by Member #103607 verified purchaser Purchased this level shifter for a 5V to 3V I2C connection and it worked out of the box without a hitch. I didn't do too much digging but I believe the onboard resistors worked nicely for the I2C pullups. I also thought the price was very good considering. Works great about 9 months ago by Member #1037121 verified purchaser Performed as expected, got my project back on track, thanks! Works great!!! about 8 months ago by Member #386694 verified purchaser In setting up a Parallax Propeller micro-controller(3.3v) to work with a Matrix Orbital LK204-25 LCD (5v) using a I2C interface, I needed a bi-directional logic-level converter. This module/board worked out great. I needed only two channels for the SDA & SCL I/O lines, but having an additional two channels on this module/board will be useful for future expansion. Works great! about 8 months ago by Member #554349 verified purchaser I realized that I need 6-bit converter. So I've re-designed and laid out 6-bit converter with BSS138 MOSFET. Now waiting for my board to arrive from being fabricated. That way, this board will make a nice interface board for the SparkFun Micro OLED Breakout (LCD-13003). Less wiring! Used it to connect a 5V Photo-Interrupter to a 3.3V ESP8266 about 7 months ago by Brad10 verified purchaser It took a bit of convincing before I believed I knew how to hook it up. Nothing could be easier: connect the two power supplies to the HV and LV inputs, connect the grounds, then connect your high level and low level signals and Voila! I bought the bi-directional part so I could use it for ESP8266 outputs as well as inputs. Worked for me right out of the box. I expect I'll be using more of these as I connect 5V parts to my 3.3V ESP8266 Thing boards. Excellent product about 7 months ago by Member #361203 verified purchaser The product does exactly what it claims, i.e. convert from 5v to 3.3v. I'm using three on a cape I've designed for the Beaglebone Black which requires the 3.3v signals. My only complaint is that I'm using it with a through hole circuit board so leads would be nice instead of having to do surface mount soldering. Great about 6 months ago by Member #399399 verified purchaser Works fine. No problems. Great for I2C, UART, less great for SPI about 6 months ago by Member #851078 verified purchaser I used this with my dev kit which has a logical voltage of 1V8 to drive several 5V and 3V3 devices. The 3V3 I2C LEDs worked like a charm and UART seems to work fine, but I had a 5V SPI device going at 1MHz that was not responding correctly. Scoping it out showed that the clock signal was only going to about 2.3V at its height, not enough to trigger a rising edge. Still a great little device though, and I can reuse for other prototyping. Great little interfaces about 5 months ago by Member #732313 verified purchaser If you're working between 3.3v and 5v you need this little baby. Makes the job of converting logic level easy. The Price is Right about 4 months ago by Member #1182964 verified purchaser Caution, object in the picture is much smaller that it appears. Other than that, it works as advertise at a price that is right. It works! about 3 months ago by Member #673028 verified purchaser Worked the first time for me. I don't really know much about electronics but I wired it up and it worked, so there you have it. Perfect in Performance and Simplicity about 3 months ago by Member #402835 verified purchaser I wish all components were like this one! I soldered the header pins and then connected 5V to one of the HV pins and checked the voltage on the corresponding LV pin. It was spot on 3.3V. Not much more than you can say other than the price was great too! The folks and products at Sparkfun are great! The Four independent channels make it universal ! Wish I had it a long time ago.. about 2 months ago by DaveW2 verified purchaser Many times I had to add resistors or transistors / resistors to the breadboard circuit before I had to layout the prototype I was working on that took way too much time. Well, here it is already to put to work for your without any lost time. The Four Independent channels are easy to hook-up with this breadboard ready module. Easy hook up to 5 volts to the HV input, 3.3 volts to the LV input. Then hook your LV device to the LV terminal and your 5 volt device to the HV terminal. That is all there is to it ! Worked as stated about a month ago by Kerns verified purchaser Used 3 to bump up the signal lines from my smoothie board to some external drivers. Haven't seen any issues yet. Hope to have them under full load soon. about 3 weeks ago by Member #891730 verified purchaser Hookup guide could explain much more. Works well with IC about 2 years ago by Member #712371 verified purchaser Here's are some demo videos of using this product with IC https://youtu.be/LwOlzQDhr-A https://youtu.be/dP9_afbdtBU A must have. about 2 years ago by RuralGuru verified purchaser I bought 4 so that I have plenty for future projects. I constantly run into the need to talk between 1 voltage system and another. This made it possible to use a wider variety of chips without consulting logic voltage before purchase. Great board to have in my candybox. Works as expected. Quick and easy! about 2 years ago by bau verified purchaser Works as expected. Quick and easy! Soldered the headers for prototyping and the thing can plug into a breadboard just fine no matter which side of the PCB you solder your pin headers. Pretty cool! Flawless!!! about 2 years ago by Member #152425 verified purchaser Used this board on 2 different projects. Absolutely no hitches or problems!!! Highly recommend it. Indispensable when interfacing I2C 5V with 3V3 about 2 years ago by Elecdonia verified purchaser I've used this to connect a 3V3 I2C device to a 5V Arduino board. Have also used it to connect 5V I2C devices to 3V3 Teensy boards. Always works perfectly. It works about 2 years ago by Member #489102 verified purchaser As advertised. No Complaints. Good Level converter about 2 years ago by Machasoftware verified purchaser Excellent product Level converter about 2 years ago by Member #450824 verified purchaser Works fine, as advertised and as expected. I don't expect any problems. I would recommend this product from sparkfun. Goodie about 2 years ago by Fezder verified purchaser This is nerve-saver, no need to `'play'` with resistors, but resistors have benefit of taking small space if only 1 or 2 lines are needed. it is perfect for my application about 2 years ago by Member #435422 verified purchaser My PCBs that I create are very flexable does exactly what it's supposed to do about 2 years ago by ozzloy verified purchaser bbb <- serial -> arduino uno. i got my bbb and arduino uno talking to each other using serial. thanks! Works as advertised about 2 years ago by Member #358847 verified purchaser Works great for level shifting (UART in my case). Well thought out pin layout for breadboarding. Also, having the schematic available is very handy. Simple and effective about 2 years ago by Member #764931 verified purchaser This essential building block is achieved with just one transistor and two resistors (with the help of the internal diode). It simply works very well with a small footprint. Easy to hook up and it works! about 2 years ago by Member #765283 verified purchaser This is a great converter to go from 3.3v to 5v. Makes it very easy to connect ESP8266 WiFi board to a 5v Arduino Uno. Perfect and minimizes circuit components about 2 years ago by Member #727317 verified purchaser WEoks perfectly, and does not take up unnecessary wiring space on your circuit board. Great Device, works as advertised about 2 years ago by Member #775168 verified purchaser Bought 2 for use in a dual SPI sensor project, Both level shifters worked just as advertised. Cheap insurance as a go-between on arduino projects. Perfect for devices which don't play nice about 2 years ago by Member #318821 verified purchaser I had a Kinetis FRDM-K64F that spoke 3v3 I2C, and an Adafruit LCD Backpack that only spoke 5v I2C, and couldn't trigger off 3v3. This converter was exactly the thing to get the two talking. Great product. about 2 years ago by cbmeeks verified purchaser I only wished this product came in an eight channel version. Tiny, inexpensive, does what it should about 2 years ago by Member #518913 verified purchaser It's a quality product. I used it to process signals from rasp pi 3. It works perfectly. Immensely practical when level conversion is needed about 2 years ago by mwgrabau verified purchaser Very easy to use: just solder in the headers, hook up the two levels (e.g. 5V and 3.3V) to the inputs/outputs from a 3.3V device (e.g. an I2C device) and you are done in five minuted compared to researching and building it yourself. Worked as advertised .. about 2 years ago by Member #42446 verified purchaser Connected it to the RFM69 using a 5V Arduino UNO and it worked perfectly Essential gear about 2 years ago by Member #709445 verified purchaser In this world of 3.3v and 5V chips, this is the easiest way to get between them, I'd love an 8 bit version at some point. Pretty simple to use, and if you aren't driving LEDs or counting on tri-state logic it works well. I found it useful to talk to 5V SPI interfaces from a 3.3V microprocessor. START SOMETHING. SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER In 2003, CU student Nate Seidle blew a power supply in his dorm room and, in lieu of a way to order easy replacements, decided to start his own company. Since then, SparkFun has been committed to sustainably helping our world achieve electronics literacy from our headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. No matter your vision, SparkFun's products and resources are designed to make the world of electronics more accessible. In addition to over 2,000 open source components and widgets, SparkFun offers curriculum, training and online tutorials designed to help demystify the wonderful world of embedded electronics. We're here to help you start something. 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