Which of the following accelerometers is best? I would like to use one in order to calculate the angle in which a device is being held.
Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout (MMA7361) - Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - ADXL362 - Proto-PIC
Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout( MMA8452Q) - SparkFun SEN-12756 Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - MMA8452Q - Proto-PIC
I'd go for the digital one.
best?
What is your definition of best?
How many samples do you want to take? frequency, precision, etc.
What is the ultimate goal of your project?
I'm fairly new to electronics and haven't really done alot. I suppose i'd be looking to calculate the angle every second or so.
The ultimate aim of the project is to build a handheld device which is capable of detecting slopes (i.e. angles) when placed on surfaces or objects.
If I'm right in saying the digital one is the MMA8452Q accelerometer?
If I'm right in saying the digital one is the MMA8452Q accelerometer?
yep!
there is example code on the page of teh shop that should help you to get started.
Thanks.
Do you think that it would be possible to have an accelerometer, shift register, 4-digit 7 segment display, LED, push button and Arduino Nano on all on the same breadboard (half)?
you are talking about an optimization that you should not do in this phase of the project.
First get it to work right, second get it to work fast enough and third productise it 
in other words, just take a full breadboard, you will need it in the future anyway (I assume)
Which of the following accelerometers is best?
You can perform adc much faster than performing an i2c / spi read.
Whether speed is important to you however will depend on your application.
You can perform adc much faster than performing an i2c / spi read.
...but not to the twelve bits resolution offered by the digital device, without using additional hardware.
What kind of speeds are we talking about here?
This is the circuit that I have designed for my application. Can you see any obvious mistakes or ways that I could improve the circuit layout?
Ideally I'd like to get all of the components on a single half breadboard (except the display) but I don't know if this will be possible.