Raspberry Pi: BMP085 pressure/temperature sensor

My BMP085 sensor

Yesterday I have got a letter containing BMP085 pressure sensor which I bought on ebay on November 20th 2012 (yes the post made a history with +50 days delivery from China).

To connect BMP085 to RPI first one has to install (in case both packages are not installed yet):

pi@raspberrystar ~ $ sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
pi@raspberrystar ~ $ sudo apt-get install python-smbus

Now one has to enable i2c in raspbian. First one has to add the user pi to the group i2c:

pi@raspberrystar ~ $ sudo adduser pi i2c

Next one has to check the contents of /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf and /etc/modules:

pi@raspberrystar ~ $ less /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf
# blacklist spi and i2c by default (many users don't need them)

blacklist spi-bcm2708
blacklist i2c-bcm2708

pi@raspberrystar ~ $ less /etc/modules
...
i2c-dev
i2c-bcm2708

Some users advocate to remove i2c-bcm2708 from blacklisted modules but this seems unneccessary as:

pi@raspberrystar ~ $ lsmod | grep i2c
i2c_bcm2708             3542  0 
i2c_dev                 5587  0 

so I have i2c_bcm270 w/o modifying /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf

Reboot now to activate the new settings

Hardware

The board my sensor came on has eight pins. There are boards with 6 pins as well which seems to be more popular. Only four out of 8 pins are used and the connections are as follows (see pictures):
GND goes to Ground on the Pi (P1-05)
3.3 goes to 3V3 on the Pi (P1-01)
SDA goes to SDA on the Pi (P1-02)
SCL goes to SCL on the Pi (P1-03)

In Reading data from a Bosch BMP085 with a Raspberry Pi 6-ping sensor is used and the pins connections are different. I have tried but it does not work for my sensor.

I connect sensor to RPI using wires with female jumpers on both ends.

To check if the sensor (or other i2c device) is connected correctly, one can run i2cdetect:

pi@raspberrystar ~ $ i2cdetect -y 0
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:          -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 77                

77 in the last row indicates that sensor is connected properly (otherwise the output will consists of rows of '--' only).

Software

To get data from the sensor one has to install Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code or compile small C program available here:

## Download john.geek's C application:
wget http://www.john.geek.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/testBMP085.c
wget http://www.john.geek.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/smbus.c
wget http://www.john.geek.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/smbus.h

## Compile & run it
gcc -Wall -o testBMP085 ./smbus.c ./testBMP085.c
./testBMP085

## Download >Adafruit's one:
git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code.git
cd Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code
cd Adafruit_BMP085

## Run
python Adafruit_BMP085_example.py

Note: testBMP085 works with sensor connected to RPi as described in this post (not as described by john geek).

BTW: the pressure is identical as reported by my WH 2080 weather station. Perhaphs WH 2080 use exactly the same sensor!