Attaching sensors to arduino

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
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I'm pretty new to this so I'm hoping someone can help me. I'd like to attach sensors sensors (accelerometer, force, etc...) to a clarinet using an Arduino and Max/MSP as the interface to my computer. In videos I've seen people attach similar sensors directly to the Arduino board. Is it possible to have the sensors send information over wires to the Arduino? What I'm going for is something similar to the i-cubex sensors but without laying out quite so much money. Thanks for the help.

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Is it possible to have the sensors send information over wires to the Arduino?

Yes defiantly.

See the playground for examples:- http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware

and for interfacing into MAX;-
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Interfacing/MaxMSP

3

Thanks for the reply Grumpy. I understand that I can connect sensors to the arduino. I guess my concern is, if I want the sensors on one side of a room and the arduino on the other, how do I physically connect them? I'll keep looking at the models in the playground. Maybe I'm missing something. Thanks for your patience.

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if I want the sensors on one side of a room and the arduino on the other

That requirement will make it expensive. You really do want to connect the arduino to the sensors directly as well as locally. Your wires really should not be any longer than about 3 meters before you have to start worrying about signals going wonky or doing their best to pick up stray radio station signals instead of your sensor signals.

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You could use a cheap RF transmitter/receiver pair and 2 x Arduino's

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how do I physically connect them?

As pointed out there are lots of ways but basically you are adding another layer of complexity to something that you are, by your own admission, new at. Get some experience of using sensors connected directly to the Arduino first.
Then you can see if you want to go down the route of two Arduinos or of having extra electronics to condition your sensor data and transmitting that data to an Arduino.

Options include RF transmitters (radio, wi-fi & bluetooth ), IR transmitters, mains wiring signalling, long wires.

7

Ok. Thanks for the help. I'll start experimenting and see what I can come up with :slight_smile: !