Vibration Sensor Selection

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Greetings all,

I will first say, excuse me if this is rather elementary but I am a software development by trade with no real exposure to the electrical sensor side. I am creating a project where I want to take the vibration reading of an object, say a bearing, and get the velocity of it, preferably in Inches/Second.

I have bought a vibration sensor here and it gives me a 0-180000 (not sure the upper bound but that is roughl number that I am seeing).

I am not sure if this sensor will provide me the data I need, and I am not sure if I will actually need an accelerometer or combination of sensors to get my project rolling.

Any advice for a newbie would be greatly appreciated.

2

Who knows what that sensor measures?

People often use accelerometers to measure vibration, but those measure acceleration (in m/s/s), not velocity or position. A vibration is characterized by rapidly varying acceleration of some frequency, and you must keep in mind that an accelerometer has an upper frequency limit, typically a few hundred Hz.

3

Thanks for the reply.

What I am trying to mimic is the readings you would get from a machine such as: CSI 2140

This analyzer gives vibration readings in inches/Sec and that is my target.

I am not sure if an accelerator will get me what I need but it does list an accelerator in the technical specs. Maybe that is what I will chase down.

Appreciate the patience, just figuring this stuff out.

4

Hi,
Welcome to the forum.

If this is what you bought.

Then I'm afraid it only has digital output, HIGH or LOW logic, no vibration quantity output.

How are you getting 180000?

Please read the first post in any forum entitled how to use this forum.

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,148850.0.html

then look down to item #7 about how to post your code.

It will be formatted in a scrolling window that makes it easier to read.

Thanks.. Tom.. :slight_smile:

5

Yep, you are right as far as the digitalRead, I am getting the numbers higher than 0 and 1 by using the pulseIn, which from my understanding gives amplitude? I could be wrong.

Here is my simple function:

long GetVibrationMeasurement(){
  long measurement = pulseIn (8,HIGH);
  return measurement;
}
6

Hi,
You will find it counts pulses, not their amplitude.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/PulseIn

Tom... :slight_smile:

7