Ok basicly I would like to make a horizontal gforce meter for in my car. What I Was thinking is some kind of gforce sensor + a pic + some leds. I don't know if this can be done cheaply or not. I hope so. Can any one point me to the gforce sensor that I could interface to a pic?
These here might not be as cheaply as you want them, but a plethora of people are familiar with them.
Wow, that's a damned cool chip. Modern electronics never cease to amaze me these days. Not cheap at $12.80 though :\
If you ever get around to it, post the results here, and a schematic if you get the chance. I'd love to make one of these . I always pull this turn at like 40mph and it throws coke cans across the car, I'd love to see the force.
12 bucks is fine sence I only need one for the project. The worst problem is it is so dang small :/ Any one know what pic would be best for this project. Basicly I was thinking 5 leds on each side (for left and right forces). Some thing like this. OOOOOXOOOOO And lets say I make a left turn OOOOOXXXXOO X = lit leds O = unlit leds. EDIT: Kind of like this but alot simpler and cheaper. I will definitly post the pic code once I can figure out how to get this done.
So could any one who has worked with these sensors give me some help as to interfacing them to a pic. I have never done any thing with the built in A/D on a pic16f88 before now so.
I havent used those chips but some from analog devices. Those are simply interfaced by running the output into an ADC.
I have a Memsic 2125 Dual-Axis Accelerometer for my car. Haven't gotten around to installing it yet as I'm not sure if I want to use it to measure force or as a tilt sensor for the steering wheel. If you go to parallax's site, they have basic stamp code for working with them. You should be able to translate that fairly easily.
Try searching the Sparkfun.com forums on use of that chip. You are probably not the only one to be using it for this purpose, and more than likely someone else who has bought it from Sparkfun would post results on their forum.
Actually, I was pointing to the other accelerometers that can interface directly to digital input lines of a microprocessor.
Yeah, I forgot to mention their, I would assume,session browsing: "http://www.sparkfun.com/shop/index.php?shop=1&cart=350724&cat=71&" hmmm... Oh well, if you did not deviate from the main page, the right navigation menu holding the section, "sensors", have a variety of accelerometers that are easier to interface but have a multiple price add-on.
Yea most of the other sensors are expensive. Is using an ADC on a pic very hard? I have no experiance with that part of a pic as of yet.
I actually make these every now and then and sell them. I use the adxl311 or adxl320. I then use 10 bit ADC on a PIC16F876A and display it on a 16x2 char backlit LCD. the ADC is piss easy on the PIC as long as you set it up right. I run the LCD from the PIC in 8-bit mode. It works very nice and you can add some bars for graphics. tune me if you need help.
Yea I definitly need a bit of help with it. I dont mind the cost of the sensors so long as I know I can get help geting it to work. I'm heading to bed but if you could pm me some of your code to look over that would be a great big help. Then I can start asking specific questions and such. EDIT: I'm sure two g's is more than enough for most any car aside from decked out race cars. Also if you can link to a source of the sensors you use that would also be great.
If using an analog accelerometer is a problem there are also various digital accelerometers. I'm using a 3-axis SPI accelerometer in a current project (though I should mention it's in a DFN package - which is quite similar to the QFN package of those Freescale chips.
I dont know if it is a big problem or not considering alot of pics have the ADC built in. Usualy only one though so that dose limit my axis down to just one. Heck if I realy knew what I was doing I bet you wouldent even need a pic.
