How bad can a $2.97 ADC be?
How bad can a $2.97 ADC be?A tale of suspiciously cheap ADS1115sJames BowmanOct 14, 2025ShareFor almost all of my embedded work I’ve used the ADCs included with microcontrollers. These are cheap, relatively fast, and not particularly good. While they sport impressive-sounding 12- and 16-bit readouts, the effective number of bits (ENOB) is usually around 8 or 9.Recently I’ve been playing with the ADS1115. It’s a dedicated ADC from TI module which plausibly delivers 16 bit accuracy.Thanks for reading Excamera Labs Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.SubscribeOne really cool thing about the ADS111x family is a dynamic range feature that gives you up to 20 times finer measurement for small amplitude voltages. It’s accuracy where it matters.The…
