HiLetgo 10pcs 4 Channels IIC I2C Logic Level Converter Bi-Directional 3.3V-5V Shifter Module for Arduino

As part of my Arduino hobby, I bought the HiLetgo 10pcs 4 Channels IIC I2C Logic Level Converter. It works great for safely connecting different voltage devices. Really handy and reliable — a must-have for anyone working on electronics projects!

DuPont connectors that stay connected.What a novel idea!

perfect for translating between the 3.3v i2c levels of my various raspberry devices and the 5v logic of my control boards. Wish they had a two port version but can't have everything now can you.

I've attached a simple schematic showing one channel of one of these boards. Each board contains four identical circuits using BSS138 MOSFETs. The ground pins are not connected to the circuit in any way and are not needed for it to function, a low level output is sinked through the corresponding input signal (MCU GPIO pin). A high level output is sourced through the corresponding Vin pin (LV or HV) through a 10k resistor. These have been working well in my experiments so far. I have one using two channels for I2C and two channels driving 5v logic-level power MOSFETS from a 3.3v microcontroller. Note that if an input is left floating, the corresponding output will go high. If using unidirectionally you can put a strong pull down resistor (1k) on the input side. A pull down on the output side will cause malfunction.

Not good for high frequency. Starts to experience significant rise times on high side after about 30 Khz, rendering many of my use cases void. Just absolutely does not work @ 1 MHz+.

If you're working on projects with Arduino or any other small board, you'll find that you need to use a voltage shifter like this from time to time. I've only used a couple of these but when you need them they're very handy to have. The only thing about these is that there are 4 channels on each board and I have yet to use more than 2. But, at this price, it's more about the size of the board and the space it takes up than the cost of a 4-channel vs 2-channel LLC. As stated in the description - these are two-way. It can take a 3.3v supply up to 5v and can take a 5v supply down to 3.3v.If you don't mind doing the soldering yourself these are great. I typically won't solder the headers onto the boards and just directly solder wire to the terminals I'm going to use. True it's a more permanent solution but considering the low cost of these, the reduction in height by not using the pin headers, and my ability to brush up on my fine soldering skills, i'm very happy to use them this way.

I’m using an ESP32 to drive roughly 10ft (3 meters) strips of full-color addressable LEDs. The ESP puts out data at 3.3v, and the LESs use 5v logic, so this chip sits between. I’ve read this chip is technically not fast enough for this protocol (I2C?), but in practice this will allow an ESP32 running WLED to drive ~800 LEDs on two physical strips w/two meter leads between the ESP and the strip start. IC’s arn’t easy to install or intuitive to use, but compared to the smaller packages, this is doable for a hobbyest.

Worked flawlessly as described. Used it to step down 5 V encoders to 3.3 V to read into Raspberry Pi Pico 2.