engsolution2
Mechanical
- Sep 16, 2008
- 7
First off, to start with I am a mechanical by trade so my foray into electrical circuit design has been a little difficult for me.
What I am attempting to do is build a circuit used in a scale application for a consumer product measuring in the weight range of 0-200 lbs. (i.e. lower cost components)
I am attempting to utilize a thin-film load cell, but I am not for sure what is the best way to send the information back to a microcontroller.
It seems it would be simple enough to measure the varying resistance by measuring the time it takes a capacitor to discharge and correlating this to a weight. Is there a downfall to doing this? (such as not being accurate?) I am only looking to be accurate to the nearest lb.
Or would it be better to build a circuit that outputs a 0-5V output and utilize an A/D converter?
Or maybe there is another method that I am not aware of.
I appreciate any help you guys can offer as this kind of work strays a little bit from what I normally get into. Thanks!
What I am attempting to do is build a circuit used in a scale application for a consumer product measuring in the weight range of 0-200 lbs. (i.e. lower cost components)
I am attempting to utilize a thin-film load cell, but I am not for sure what is the best way to send the information back to a microcontroller.
It seems it would be simple enough to measure the varying resistance by measuring the time it takes a capacitor to discharge and correlating this to a weight. Is there a downfall to doing this? (such as not being accurate?) I am only looking to be accurate to the nearest lb.
Or would it be better to build a circuit that outputs a 0-5V output and utilize an A/D converter?
Or maybe there is another method that I am not aware of.
I appreciate any help you guys can offer as this kind of work strays a little bit from what I normally get into. Thanks!