Good day! I've read papers on how accelerometer is used to read vibration signals from gearboxes of rotating machinery, wind turbine, etc for faulty diagnosis. But, the common accelerometer used (PCB ICP 353C03) is probably too expensive for a student. Is it possible to use low-cost accelerometer sensors like mpu-6050? To read vibration signals from gearboxes then probably use Arduino or ESP32 for the sending of the data?
I'm thinking of enclosing them in a box then mounted in the machine, but will placing the electronic be safe, for the gearboxes and the electronics themselves?
I apologize if my question might have been answered in the internet, as I have not encountered similar to what I'm going for.
It will not have the same senesitivity, range or frequency response as the ICP 353C03. You will probably be very disapointed with the perfomance of the 6050 compared to the ICP 353C03, if it works at all.
Yes it is. However I would steer clear of the ESP32 if I were you. About half the questions asked here are about getting an ESP32 (that is the non official Arduino one) to work. Although they can be got dirt cheap clones from the internet.
Hobby work on an indoor machine is worth trying. For outdoor running equippment humidity, heat/cold are difficult factors.
I once put an opamp in a plastic bag, all in the engine bay, of my car. It amplified the signals from an impeller on the fuel line. As the impeller was hobby grade I removed it after a year or two, before it started to drip petrol...
But it worked!
if you want WiFi (or BLE) connectivity use a ESP32 - otherwise you probably end up attaching a WiFi module to a much less powerful microcontroller with the added problems associated with jumper wires between modules