arduino wire library multiple i2c busses

Yes, you could use an I2C MUX to share the single hardware I2C channel, however that will both be awkward and the results will be sub-optimal anyway.

It can be done with software, but chances are you will have to re-write the library that supports it to use bit-banged I2C. In an ideal world you would have your other sensor on a separate I2C bus. Is there any other way to make this system work? Also using Serial would complicate the connection to the computer and using SPI wouldn’t work if I use an SPI sensor breakout later. I also don’t wanna just use SPI or Serial to connect the microcontrollers cause I’d have to undo months of work on coding and custom PCBs. I had an idea to use an I2C multiplexer like the TCA9543A to create two busses but I don’t know if that would work. I can’t seem to get the card peripheral to wait until the controller starts the bus before trying to control the sensor to avoid a conflict. Software used to turn normal digital pins into I2C pins didn’t work since the libraries don’t seem compatible. Every time I try to make this work and the card tries to communicate with the sensor, it tries to start a new I2C bus and everything starts glitching. To control it, the microcontroller on the card needs to act as a controller, but it also needs to be a peripheral to communicate with the backplane controller.

Here’s my issue: one of the sensors I intend to use on the card is an I2C breakout board. The card is supposed to be a peripheral device that sends processed data from a sensor to the backplane.

I have a TCA4311ADR I2C hotswap buffer on the backplane connected to the port that connects to the card. One such peripheral is a removable card with another Atmega328P based microcontroller as the peripheral. I have a backplane with an Atmega328P based microcontroller controlling an I2C bus with multiple peripheral devices.

Arduino wire library multiple i2c busses