Strain gauge drafting

Other Hardware Sensors
1

Is there any way to remove or decrease draft while using strain gauges?

2

I assume you mean "drift". Drift = variation in output with no change in load.

The answer is NO. Low cost strain gauges drift. The only way to reduce the drift is to purchase a better quality strain gauge.

1 Like
3

Measure drift over time and compensate?

4

Strain gauges are scaring beasts. Even the most expensive may have important drift. My hints:

  1. Define the acceptable drift for your application (0 is not a valid answer!)
  2. rule out temperature and voltage: you can use a resting strain gauge to compensate the temperature variations, and acquire the exciting voltage/current to cancel out any changes
  3. DO NOT understimate the adhesive and the mounting process. They are the most important sources of drifting, it's quite hard to mount strain gauges properly
Drifting Load cell in a stable environment
5

Hi
Can I ask you elaborate a bit "best praksis" mounting, I am building 10 scales for bee hives and are using 4x half bridge cells from GML670 micro load cell (this one has a datasheet, $4 for 4 pcs) and I need all help I can get to make it as good as possible.

image

My base as per today:

image
image769×723 97.1 KB

Drifting Load cell in a stable environment
6

So your goal is to measure a slow increase in weight over a long (2~3 months) period?

This will make minimising drift even more difficult!

7

Well, 24/7/365 in Norway and it is not 0,0x kg, more like 0,4 kg, from 14 to 100 kg
I have made a skale that is pretty good and stable with not to big temp drift, and now I go for a better load cell than "alibaba" so I think my system will work.

I asked @Mark81 for tip how to mount it as good as possible, to learn more, load cell has been a "nightmare" for me, but I think I have solved it.
M

8

Unfortunately I have not enough skills to teach you how to place strain gauges, but when I worked in a company that used them, only few specialized technicians were able to mount strain gauges. They attended several courses provided by the manufacturer of the sensors, and only after a quite long training they were able to successfully install the strain gauges, still with a low (but not zero) failure rate.

1 Like
11

Hello @duvdujvsrhvgik
Are you still looking for an answer?

12

I tried this about 6 months ago. The drift goes up and down with no discernable frequency nor magnitude.

13

6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Drifting Load cell in a stable environment

14

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.