Hi there, i am an Intern and i needed to design an unit based on arduino to measure the width of an elastic that is going through a machine for its production.
I did searched on google and found out that using IR i cannot do this, since the elastics will be in different colors. since it can detect only black or white. so i thought i shall move in to image processing, but in that case is it reliable to do so using arduino? what method should i use? i was thinking maybe from a camera to capture each an every elastic and measure its width and show it on a display. can you guys please suggest a method?
From your post I make up you want to do this contactless so yes that'd be optical.
I don't see why IR can't work, colour is irrelevant. Camera & image processing is probably the way to go and that's out of scope of an Arduino.
My first thought here is to just use a strain gauge and monitor its output .When I worked in plastic injection factory , they used strain gages for positioning where the injection barrel was and reading out to a numeric display. So you could probably just supply the strain gage with a 5 volt signal from your Arduino , read its value to the Analog out and display it on your serial monitor,think of reading a potentiometer and outputting its value.This is a cut and paste here from a lesson from toptechboy.com, hope I don't violate any rules here.
int LEDPin=9; //assigning LED Pin
int potPin= A0; //Declaring our readValue variable
float Voltage; //Declare Voltage value
int readValue; ///Use this variable to read pot
int writeValue; //variable for writing to LED
int potPinA0On;
int potPinOff;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600); //turn on Serial port
pinMode(potPin,INPUT); // set potPin to Input
pinMode(LEDPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
analogWrite=(potPinA0On,51);
//readValue = analogRead(potPin); //Reads voltage
//writeValue = (255./1023.) * readValue ;//caculate real world value
//analogWrite(LEDPin, writeValue); //Serial.print("You are writing the value of "); //Serial.println(writeValue);
//delay(250);
Not sure if this address your project or not, maybe I am just plain mistaken here. I guess in my mind I am thinking of an analog read of the gage so as the force on the gage would create a measurable change in resistance , more of a position sensor. Sorry if I misunderstood your application.
A Strain gauge (sometimes referred to as a Strain gage) is a sensor whose resistance varies with applied force; It converts force, pressure, tension, weight, etc., into a change in electrical resistance which can then be measured. When external forces are applied to a stationary object, stress and strain are the result.