Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Accelerometer project

Status
Not open for further replies.

kiowamec

New Member
I would like to build a accelerometer to measure vehicle acceleration. Problem is... I have no electronics background. Long story short. Can I use a ADXL103, three or so LM3914's and a few led bar graphs to make a low cost accelerometer?
 
kiowamec said:
I would like to build a accelerometer to measure vehicle acceleration. Problem is... I have no electronics background. Long story short. Can I use a ADXL103, three or so LM3914's and a few led bar graphs to make a low cost accelerometer?

but the precision (resolution) would be very low.. to a point that the device would be realy useless, you should use an ADC....
 
I was wondering about that also. I figure I only need about a total of .6 G and with 30 bars that would give me a reolution of .02 G per bar. Does that seem adequate?
 
1 ADXL103CE-ND IC ACCELEROMETER SNGL-AXIS 8CLCC 0 13.61000 $13.61
3 LM3914N-1 IC DRIVER DOT BAR DISPLAY 18-DIP 0 2.87000 $8.61
1 160-1068-ND LED BAR GRAPH 10-SEGMENT YELLOW 0 1.05000 $1.05
1 160-1067-ND LED BAR GRAPH 10-SEGMENT GREEN 0 1.05000 $1.05
1 160-1066-ND LED BAR GRAPH 10-SEGMENT RED 0 1.05000 $1.05

I would like to use a pot to adjust the upper range and another pot to adjust the lumens. If someone could recommend how to wire this up and the aditional parts I would need I would greatly appreciate it. I unfortunately only know enough to be able to follow directions. Man I hate being ignorant about stuff.
 
You know actually .6 G's are tiny...like you can get much more than that in simple everyday situations.

I don't really think it's wise for you to invent an engine before the wheel.
 
After checking more sources it seems I need around .9 g's. I could just add two more LM3914's and not use the first two except for scaling. If I am on the wrong track please explain.

As far as a small amount of g force, a vehicle with a one g launch would be extremely quick. That would be your body weight pushing you back in your seat.
 
You might consider reducing the chip count by replacing some of the discreet components with a PIC. Accelerometer -> PIC A/D -> logic buffer -> LED array.
 
I would really like to do something like that but do not have ANY electronics background. I am technicaly inclined, but my knowledge is currently limited to mechanical things. Any recommendatons on how I could begin to do something like this.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top