I've been away from the forum for a while, I had to catch up with work around the house. But the next project beckons....
I'm using the a FlexForce sensor from Tekscan to measure weight. pdf here.
http://www.tekscan.com/pdfs/FlexiforceUserManual.pdf
In essence the sensor is a flexible pcb, as pressure on the sensor increases resistance decreases.
The TekScan manual speaks of using a opamp (MC34071PG) in a drive circuit in conjunction with the sensor.
I have been using the sensor with picaxe's ADC in a potential divider setup on the breadboard. It sems to work ok.
Is the opamp essential?
As far as I can see I should be able to write/develop a simple program using a series of known weights to calibrate the sensor according to the resistance across the Flexforce. I could debug ADC result and make note of that value and the weight on the sensor and then incorporate that into my program.
Any comments/ observations welcome.
I'm using the a FlexForce sensor from Tekscan to measure weight. pdf here.
http://www.tekscan.com/pdfs/FlexiforceUserManual.pdf
In essence the sensor is a flexible pcb, as pressure on the sensor increases resistance decreases.
The TekScan manual speaks of using a opamp (MC34071PG) in a drive circuit in conjunction with the sensor.
I have been using the sensor with picaxe's ADC in a potential divider setup on the breadboard. It sems to work ok.
Is the opamp essential?
As far as I can see I should be able to write/develop a simple program using a series of known weights to calibrate the sensor according to the resistance across the Flexforce. I could debug ADC result and make note of that value and the weight on the sensor and then incorporate that into my program.
Any comments/ observations welcome.