I2C

Config

Enable I2C support by configuring the interface with raspi-config and do a reboot to load the kernel drivers.

Check if the kernel drivers were loaded at startup:

lsmod | grep i2c

For a Raspi 3B the result should look something like this:

i2c_bcm2835            16384  0
i2c_dev                20480  0

Then, install the following packages to do some basic i2c tinkering:

sudo aptitude -y install i2c-tools

The i2cdetect tool can be used to search the bus for nodes. But Obacht, not all nodes are detected this way.

sudo i2cdetect -y 1

Then, install the following package(s) for i2c support in python:

sudo aptitude -y install python3-smbus

or smbus2 for some extended features:

sudo pip3 install smbus2