http://www.imsolidstate.com Always improving things... Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:32:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://www.imsolidstate.com/archives/245 http://www.imsolidstate.com/archives/245#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:40:59 +0000 imsolidstate http://www.imsolidstate.com/?p=245 I recently messed with some accelerometers in order to cancel out dead weight in a load cell application. These MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) devices are really handy. They are incredibly small, they have very modest power requirements, and are typically in a standard IC package. The device that I ended up using was a Freescale MMA1220EG. It offers an on-board amplified output and only requires three external components. It uses 5VDC at 5mA, and has a +/- 8g range. The 0g offset is 2.5V and moves from that point at 250mV/g.
I built a simple PCB that mounted the accelerometer and a filter along with an op-amp as a buffer to drive the output and send it down a run of wire. It worked so well I’ve been trying to think up something else to put one on.

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