Source: https://mokxi.com/parts/mpu6050 Updated: 2026-09-27 Part # Accelerometer and gyroscope, MPU6050 Six axes over I2C. Drag the board to tip it and the accelerometer follows gravity. or see every part - 8 pins - 3 properties Drawn live by the editor's own code, at the size you see it. Reference ## Every one of its 8 pins Pin Role What it does VCC Input or output GND Input or output SCL Input or output SDA Input or output XDA Input or output XCL Input or output AD0 Input or output INT Output This part ## What it does The MPU6050 is a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope on one chip, usually sold on the GY-521 board with its own I2C pull-ups. At rest, the accelerometer measures gravity, so the angle the board is tilted at is the arctangent of two of its readings; the gyroscope measures how fast the board is turning, and sits at zero whenever it is still. Mokxi’s part is the register file a driver talks to, at 0x68 or 0x69, and it keeps the detail that trips up hand-written drivers: the chip powers up asleep, with every measurement reading zero until the sleep bit is cleared. WHO_AM_I reads 0x68 at either address. The ranges are the datasheet’s four and four. Drag the board on the canvas to tip it. The motion processor’s own firmware is not modeled, and the chip is perfectly calibrated where a real one has offsets to subtract. How to use it ## How to use the MPU6050 with an Arduino SCL to A5, SDA to A4, VCC and GND to the rails; the GY-521 board has its own pull-ups. Before anything else, wake the chip: it powers up asleep and every measurement reads zero until register 0x6B is written with 0. Then read the fourteen data bytes from 0x3B in one burst, so the axes all come from the same sample. Flat and still, the accelerometer reads 0, 0 and 1 g. The tilt angle is the arctangent of two of those readings; the gyro reads how fast the board is turning, not where it points. Part pin Board pin SCL A5 SDA A4 VCC 5 V GND GND The same register reads work on an ESP32 or a Pico on their own I2C pins. Click to open it in the editor This is the simulator itself, running here. Click anything to open it in the editor. Open this project in the editor Read the full tutorial Waking it with Wire Reference ## The 3 properties you can set Property Default What it means pitch 0 roll 0 temperature 25 How it is modeled ## What is true about the Accelerometer and gyroscope, MPU6050, here ### The MPU6050, and the two things everybody hits A three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope in one chip, on the little purple GY-521 board. The bus part is easy; the register map is the work. It powers up asleep. PWR_MGMT_1 (0x6B) reads 0x40 after reset (the SLEEP bit), and until it is cleared every measurement register reads zero. No error, no complaint: a perfectly steady nothing, which is worse than a crash. Every driver's begin() writes 0 there first. WHO_AM_I is 0x68 whatever the address is. The register holds bits 6:1 of the address, and AD0 is bit 0. So a board strapped to 0x69 still identifies as 0x68, and a driver that compares WHO_AM_I against the address it is using fails on exactly the board somebody had to strap. After that it is arithmetic. ACCEL_CONFIG bits 4:3 and GYRO_CONFIG bits 4:3 pick the ranges, and the counts per unit are on the datasheet: bits accelerometer counts per g bits gyroscope counts per deg/s 0 +/-2 g 16384 0 +/-250 deg/s 131 1 +/-4 g 8192 1 +/-500 deg/s 65.5 2 +/-8 g 4096 2 +/-1000 deg/s 32.8 3 +/-16 g 2048 3 +/-2000 deg/s 16.4 Every reading is a signed 16-bit number, high byte first, and it saturates at the end of the scale rather than wrapping, which is the whole argument for the wider ranges. ### Not modeled Clock stretching, which none of these three chips does anyway. Arbitration between two masters. Ten-bit addressing. And the rate: the parts decode the bus from its edges and impose no timing of their own, so a driver that is too fast works here where a real device would not answer. Arduino I2C LCD not working uses a scanner and Wire.endTransmission() to tell a wiring fault from a wrong address. From Two wires, several chips, in full. Projects ## See the Accelerometer and gyroscope, MPU6050 in a project Shown here on: Arduino Uno R3 Learn ## Where it turns up in a lesson ### In a learn article - Arduino MPU6050: Accelerometer and Tilt - I2C Explained: Addresses, Pull-Ups and a Scanner More parts ## The rest of the bench Every one of these is drawn and simulated the same way. Full-size breadboard A real 0.1 inch grid with the rails and the center channel, 63 columns wide. Jumper wires Drag from any pin or hole to any other. Corners snap, and you can drag them. Power A supply rail at the voltage you choose. Ground The other end of every circuit. LED Lights when current flows. Five colors, and the brightness is what your eye would see. Resistor Any value you like, with the color bands drawn to match. ESP32-C3-DevKitM-1 A RISC-V board that runs your firmware at 160 MHz on the real memory map. Pushbutton A 12 mm tactile switch. Hold it while the simulation runs. Raspberry Pi Pico The RP2040 board on our own Cortex-M0+ core. Pick a program and press Run. Raspberry Pi Pico W Raspberry Pi Pico W (RP2040). The same board and the same pinout as a Pico, with the CYW43439 on it. The WiFi is simulated (no radio, no real internet), and the on-board LED, which hangs off that chip rather than off GP25, is driven through the same path. Everything else is the Pico. STM32F411 Black Pill The Black Pill on our own Cortex-M4 core. Pick a program and press Run. BBC micro:bit V2 The nRF52833 board with its 5x5 LED matrix, buttons A and B and a speaker. Wire the rings to a breadboard. See every part ## Wire up the Accelerometer and gyroscope, MPU6050 Open the editor and push it into the breadboard. It is free, and it runs on your own machine. Start building Open the editor