Strain gauge on a chip?

Other Hardware Sensors
1

Hi,

I need to incorporate a strain gauge into a project I'm working on.

Strain gauges themselves seem to be quite cheap, but they don't work without an exciter circuit to provide an input signal, and a hi-gain op-amp circuit to turn a minuscule signal into something a microprocessor can read. (all this according to what I've learnt from google in the last 15 minutes)

There are also a bewildering variety of op-amp circuits out there, however what I'm looking for (and can't find) is a simple 'strain gauge on a chip' I can buy. At this stage of my project I'd prefer not to get side-tracked into analogue circuit design unless I have to. Is there really no single chip solution? I can't be the first one to want to measure strain? Even sparkfun don't seem to have a breakout board to help me, and they have a sensor for everything!

Thanks

2

Here is another way you might consider reading low level strain gauges wired into Wheatstone bridge circuits. It's a low level differential input 24 bit ADC converter. It's based on a TM7709 chip.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121022291106?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Here is a posting where I talk about it.

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,154481.15.html

Lefty

3

Thanks, at least that's a damn sight cheaper than many of the options out there.