help with accelerometer project

[tjennis]

Hello,
I'm looking to work on a project which will measure the accelerations on a yacht using one or more accelerometers and outputing the data onto a computer maybe using Excel or something similar to show the movements using graphs or tables, or maybe even animations.
I'm thinking that the best option is buying these two (from www.rapidonline.com):
- LIS302DL 3-axis accelerometer
- STEVAL MKI006V1 evaluation kit

I am wondering if anyone has any advice or experience using these components or similar components? Or, if there is a better way to do it without needing to write much code!

Thank you very much, any information would be greatly appreciated!

 

[dknguyen]

MOst of the time I would say you would need additional sensors like a tilt sensor (something other than an accelerometer) or gyro or whatever to know which way is down so you can get rid of the acceleration due to gravity. BUt since this is a boat (a big boat at that) I assume you don't plan in conditions with steep waves and that your boat will be essentially horizontal all the time (if not you probably got other problems to be worrying about). So I think what you have is what you need, except for maybe a microcontroller and RS-232 port. Probably you need an RS-232 to USB chip or adapter from FTDI since all PCs are USB now, but RS-232 is by far easier to work with. THe chip and PC driver makes it appear like an RS-232 serial port from PC And microcontroller while using a USB cable.

 

[user_88]

ADI - Analog Dialogue | iMEMS Gyro

 

[tjennis]

Thanks!
I appreciate your help,, just discovered this forum and have spent a lot of time looking through all the threads

Any ideas about software for making interactive graphics with the data from the accelerometers and gyro's?

Thanks again

 

[dknguyen]

Thanks!
I appreciate your help,, just discovered this forum and have spent a lot of time looking through all the threads

Any ideas about software for making interactive graphics with the data from the accelerometers and gyro's?

Thanks again

After you have picked the forum you want to read or post in, you can make a new thread by clicking the "New Thread" button in the top left right above the list of threads.

TCL/tk or some other scripting language is probably your best bet. Lets you quickly whip up a graphical program to mask the serial commands the PC is receiving. THere are packages and modules out there that make the graphs and things like that for you and you take the data from the serial port and stick it into the modules and it will add the data onto the graph it produces on the streek.