# Measuring 32V using ADC of Atmega8

I'm trying to measure the battery voltage of 30V using the ADC of an AVR Atmega8, AVCC is connected to 5V.

I connected a suitable voltage divider: R1 is 270k, R2 is 10k. The result I get is wrong at all, at 30V I get 23V. The equation I use is batteryvoltage = 5*1023/adcReading.

// Read the AD conversion result
{
// Wait for the AD conversion to complete
}


• Why are you dividing by the adcReading? – pjc50 Jan 23 '13 at 10:24
• @pjc50 to get the full reading of the battery ? – Mahmoud Jan 23 '13 at 10:25
• adcReading should be numerator, not the denominator. Configured as it is, the result will decrease with increasing voltage. – Nick Johnson Jan 23 '13 at 10:29
• @NickJohnson The result is always zero... How also can I modify it to bte the result increase with decreasing voltage? – Mahmoud Jan 23 '13 at 10:32

Your calculation for the battery voltage is wrong. Assuming adcReading varies from 0 to 1023, it should look like this:

batteryVoltage = (adcReading * 30) / 1023


Note though that denoting voltage like this, with integer volts, will only give you 31 possible readings (0 to 30). A more useful result might be in millivolts:

batteryVoltageMillivolts = (adcReading * 30000) / 1023


Note that in this case batteryVoltageMillivolts will have to be a long, not an int.

• can you help me with the voltage divider issure please? I think its also affecting.. – Mahmoud Jan 23 '13 at 10:35
• What voltage divider issue? You didn't specify one in the question. – Nick Johnson Jan 23 '13 at 10:37
• I have specified R1 = 50k, R2=10k, this gives 5V at 30V, but still the output is wrong using your equations above. – Mahmoud Jan 23 '13 at 10:38
• You said R1=270k above! What's the actual reading at the adc input pin with a voltmeter? – pjc50 Jan 23 '13 at 10:40
• You want to ensure that the divider allows some "overflow" - if you want to measure 32V but your ADC input voltage is 5V (ie max) at 30V you will have a problem! – Andrew Jan 23 '13 at 12:21

@Mahmoud - depending on the resolution of your ADC (10 bit, 12 bit?) I'd be minded to divide by 10 using your resistor divider - so 32V == 3.2V at the ADC

This gives a possible range of 50V == 5.0V at the ADC therefore no overloading of the input.

For the 10 bit ADC this then gives you a resolution of 0.049V for a 50V input

If you need a bit more accuracy, divide to 35V == 5.0V at the input which gives you a resolution of 0.034V

• its 10bit of the AVR Atmega8 – Mahmoud Jan 24 '13 at 8:43