Polling a Force-Sensing Resistor?

Using Arduino Programming Questions
#1

Hey guys -

I am throwing together my first Arduino project and I am rusty to C/C++ so I do not know where to start or get the information for this task. Basically I want to poll a force-sensing resistor which is connected to my board and based on the weight I will light up certain LEDs. (The part I have trouble with is polling the sensor)

Any ideas?

#2

The part I have trouble with is polling the sensor)

I am not sure what your problem is.
AnalogRead(pin) will read the value of the sensor, if you connect it to the analogue input and wire a pull up resistor from the input to +5V.

#3

Thats what I needed to know. Thanks. I do not know where to get this info. :stuck_out_tongue: I've been doing Java/Python and its been years since ive worked with C. Completely new to Arduinos.

#4

You want to setup the FSR in a voltage divider configuration, then read the voltage drop across a known resistor value. You can invert this to approximate force. We wrote a whole tutorial on doing this with an FSR here:

Force Sensitive Resistors (FSRs) with Arduino

A view of the calibration procedure is shown below, where the sensor is calibrated with known mass values:

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#5