3-axis strain gauge rosette, HX711

Hi to all,

I have a strain gauge rosette made by three gauges: two placed at 90° and the other one placed at 45° like in the photo:

strain

I purchased a HX711 and I would like to be able to read the values coming from the sensors with my Arduino MEGA.

Unfortunately, I can't understand how I need to wire the six wires from the strain gauges (each one has two wires) to the HX711 since it as:

E+
E-
A+
A-
B+
B-

I searched a lot on google, but I just found examples with one or four strain gauges.
I can't figure our how to wire the gauges to the amplifier.

Can you please help me?
Thank you!

Please post a link to the data sheet or product page for the sensor.

Since the individual cells are intended for independent measurements, most likely you would use each individual cell as one leg of a Wheatstone bridge, with three matching resistors in the other legs. Three of those, connected to three amplifiers.

What is your plan for interpreting the data you obtain from that highly specialized part?

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Thank you for your answer.
This is the table reported in the sensor specifications:

the code of my rosette is BF120-3CA, so the typical resistance is 120 Ohm in my case.

Three 120 Ohm precision resistors and the amplifier you have will get you started with one cell.

sorry, i didn't understand your suggestion.
Should I purchase three precision resistors?
How should I wire them with the strain gauges?

For each sensor strip, make a Wheatstone bridge with three (0.1% if possible) low temperature coefficient 120 Ohm metal-film resistors and connect that to the input of an HX-711 amplifier as usual.

The assembly should be isolated from electrical interference with a grounded metal shield.

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can you please show me a diagram for the connections? This would help me to better understand

thank you a lot

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TBC @jremington is calling for three bridges of the "one strain gauge" style, so 9 precision resistors and three HX amplifiers.

The only other plausible solution is a four gauge bridge with one leg replaced with a precision resistor.

That's one bridge, so one HX amplifier. But I think that would make it impossible to get as much information from the rosette as is intended.

a7

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There are some industrial tutorials about the use of those rosettes, so spend some time on the web.

I suspect that most applications would use two (half bridge) or four (full bridge) copies of that sensor rosette, with three independent amplifiers, making three independent strain measurements of the material under test.

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thank you for all the suggestions!
Since I will need to use a total of 5 rosettes (so, 15 strain gauges), the use of the bridges could become a little bit tricky.

Searching on google, I found this amplifier: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000907686535.html
It seems that it integrates the bridge since I see some resistors close to the input. Could this be a faster solution?

@marcusbarnet I found this

site with a schematic

So 15 of those, yeah. But is that circuit and its analog output as good as using an HX module? Which has a digital interface.

a7

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probably the HX amplifier is better since it is digital, the analog solution would be faster since I would like to test the gauges shortly and I see that the analog solution is faster to implement since it requires few connections.

Is there any difference if the wires from the sensors to the amplifier are 30 or 100 cm long?

google seems to be working better over here where I am than over there where you are. I pass this along:

discussion of wiring lengths for strain gauges

I'm just following my curiosity here and reasoning about this, not tapping any vast experience or knowledge, so.

a7

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The amplifier circuit shown in post #12 specifies bridge resistances of 360 Ohms, so it is useless for 120 Ohm strain gauge strips.

I suppose you could wire all three strips on one rosette in series, which adds to 360 Ohms.

But the question remains: what is your plan for interpreting the measurements?

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Can I add a 240Ohm precision resistor in series on each strain gauge in order use them with the amplifier in post #12?

About the measurements, I was supposing to get a percentage of the deformation 0-100%.
I was reading this tutorial: Learn Everything About Strain Gauge Sensor | 2020

To eliminate the fiddling with individual resistors, you could use a commercial off-the-shelf completion module for each gauge.

You may also want to learn about three-wire quarter bridges and shunt calibration.

And, as others have said, it would be helpful if you described the "big picture" (with photos and sketches), the overall project goal, and what you are going to do with the data. Is this a school assignment?

Yes, but only if the 350 ohm resistance of the resistors match the resistance of your strain gauges. Since your gauge is 120 ohm, you'd need a module with different resistors.

When they hook 4 gauges to a HX711 in a normal application, the geometry of how they are physically positioned on the unit helps constructively amplify and average the signals into one output. One uses the three-axis rosette to get three separate signals of strains in three different axes. In yours, the 45° gauge would help check the results on the other two axes.

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Can I add a 240Ohm resistor in series with the strain gauges in order to use them with the 350Ohm amplifier?

You could, but would get only 1/3 of the sensitivity or 3x the noise.

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