Hello all.
Sorry if this is the wrong area but i was hoping somebody could give some more feed back on a couple of sensors.
I have 2 kinds of vibration sensors here at work and was interested in trying to read them with the arduino for no real purpose at the moment just to try and learn somemore.
The sensors i have access to are
Allan Bradley 9200 (EK-47086I)
Hansford Sensors HS-150S
Just been having a play on the bench and i have used a voltage divider and got the 12v bias output from the sensor down to 5v so i should not damage anything but i am unsure of the output from the sensors as to what i should be trying to read.
Any help would be appreciated.
The Hansford sensor can put out about 8V max. You can use the same voltage divider you are using for the 12V, but you can also use a small divider since the max output voltage is less.
There are several AB sensors in the referenced data sheet, so it depends on which one you have, but the method is the same (unless you have a 4-20mA output). Calculate the max output voltage and scale it down to 5V max (or 3.3V if you have a low voltage Arduino).
It is not clear to me from the data sheets if they put out a DC voltage proportional to the acceleration or if the output voltage is going to oscillate above and below as the sensor is shaken up and down (or side to side). If it's a DC output then reading it is just taking a ADC reading. If it is an AC voltage you will need to take a sequence of measurements and then extract the max/min voltage or if you want to get fancy, calculate the RMS value.
sdturner:
It is not clear to me from the data sheets if they put out a DC voltage proportional to the acceleration or if the output voltage is going to oscillate above and below as the sensor is shaken up and down (or side to side).
This is the part that i am trying to work out before i go any further. It just isnt clear to me what i should be trying to read.