Trying to read analog signal with digital pin using outside ADC

Question

Is there a way to route an analog signal from a simple temperature sensor through an ADC, MCP3008, into a digital pin. I have used all the analog pins on my Arduino Mega 2560 and am trying to utilize all the digital I/Os.

Any insights on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The MCP3008 is an SPI device. You connect it to the SPI pins of your Arduino. Then you can read 8 analog channels through it.

It requires 4 pins: MISO, MOSI, SCK and a chip select pin.

• Gerben: If you don't plan on adding anything else that uses SPI you could just connect the ChipSelect to ground, and free a pin on the Arduino.
• Majenko: @Gerben That is not good practice. Chip Select is not just used to multiplex the bus but also to synchronise the start and (sometimes) the end of communication.