i am looking at building a circuit that would receive data from an accelerometer fitted to a Modal engine (to replicate a helicopter engine),

it would then store the data of flight duration before transferring the data via Bluetooth to a laptop/tablet.

my query is what type of board would be the most beneficial to use?

Also is it possible to fit an accelerometer (piezoelectric sensor) to the pc board?

thank you in advance for your time over this,

 

@cmartinez Sorry, your response timestamp prevented moving your reply to the duplicate post.

 

i am looking at building a circuit that would receive vibration data from an accelerometer fitted to a dc motor.

it would then store the data before transferring the data via Bluetooth to a laptop/tablet.

I am attempting this as a project, having researched numerous websites covering sensors/accelerometers, pcbs, Bluetooth devices I am still unsure as to whether or not this idea is feasible or what would be the best components to use.

Any advice would be much appreciated

thank you in advance for your time over this,

A smartphone can be used for the purposes you've described.

Check this out, it might serve your purpose. It's especially interesting because it takes advantage of all available resources without having to design any special circuitry.

 

@cmartinez Sorry, your response timestamp prevented moving your reply to the duplicate post.

It's ok, John. Thanks for tagging me.

 

A smartphone can be used for the purposes you've described.

Check this out, it might serve your purpose. It's especially interesting because it takes advantage of all available resources without having to design any special circuitry.

Thank you for taking the time to suggest a way forward for my project. Unfortunately, it is the data from the piezoelectric sensor that is measuring the vibration from the DC Motor that i need to transfer to a pc via Bluetooth. The idea is based upon the transfer of HUMS data in a helicopter but rather than using a PCMCIA Card the data would be transferred via bluetooth to a ground station. i just need to (somehow) prove my concept works. which is where i am struggling and stressing!!

 

Thank you for taking the time to suggest a way forward for my project. Unfortunately, it is the data from the piezoelectric sensor that is measuring the vibration from the DC Motor that i need to transfer to a pc via Bluetooth. The idea is based upon the transfer of HUMS data in a helicopter but rather than using a PCMCIA Card the data would be transferred via bluetooth to a ground station. i just need to (somehow) prove my concept works. which is where i am struggling and stressing!!

You do realize that the Bluetooth standard cannot reliably transmit information at more than 10 meters? (about 30 feet) ... is your helicopter going to be flying close to the receiver while making measurements?

 

You do realize that the Bluetooth standard cannot reliably transmit information at more than 10 meters? (about 30 feet) ... is your helicopter going to be flying close to the receiver while making measurements?

it is intended to transfer the vibration data once the helicopter has been pushed into the hangar for maintenance so the 10 metres would be within range.

 

Are you knowledgeable or have some experience with micro controllers? 8051, Arduino, PICs, etc?

 

Are you knowledgeable or have some experience with micro controllers? 8051, Arduino, PICs, etc?

No, hence the high stress levels. Although my concept is a good idea it is the actual building of design with which iam having major difficulties with

 

No, hence the high stress levels. Although my concept is a good idea it is the actual building of design with which iam having major difficulties with

How about programming? What languages do you have experience with?

 

How about programming? What languages do you have experience with?

none. doesnt look good does it!

 

none. doesnt look good does it!

hence the desperate request for help and advice

 

If you're making a full custom board, then you can get a processor such as the Nordic nrf52832, which has integrated Bluetooth, and an accelerometer such as the ST LIS2DE12 which will give interrupts on motion. So when it detects motion, it sends an interrupt to the processor. The processor starts a clock and stops the clock when the interrupts stop coming. Now you have a time span for how long the helicopter was vibrating. Save it to memory, then use Bluetooth to download the saved results. Put a realtime clock on the board to keep accurate time/date. Note that you might need to program in some analysis of the motion data for differentiating between vibrations of flight and vibrations of someone just crawling around or working on it in the hangar.

All of that said; what I described above is not for a beginner, the learning curve will be very steep.

Option 2 would be base your project on something like the Arduino Bluetooth and use an off-the-shelf accelerometer board such as this one. This would probably be a lot easier to put together and get working, if off-the-shelf parts are OK, but still not a good beginner project.

Also in both cases you will need an application of some sort (phone, laptop, etc..) to download the data.

It might be most productive in your situation to take your idea to a company that custom makes electronics. The conversation will be most productive if you give them as much detail as you can about what it will do, what size it needs to be and what environment it will live in, as well as what your budget is, what your schedule is and how many you will need. There are many companies around that will do this for you, such as www.kr4.us

 

If you're making a full custom board, then you can get a processor such as the Nordic nrf52832, which has integrated Bluetooth, and an accelerometer such as the ST LIS2DE12 which will give interrupts on motion. So when it detects motion, it sends an interrupt to the processor. The processor starts a clock and stops the clock when the interrupts stop coming. Now you have a time span for how long the helicopter was vibrating. Save it to memory, then use Bluetooth to download the saved results. Put a realtime clock on the board to keep accurate time/date. Note that you might need to program in some analysis of the motion data for differentiating between vibrations of flight and vibrations of someone just crawling around or working on it in the hangar.

All of that said; what I described above is not for a beginner, the learning curve will be very steep.

Option 2 would be base your project on something like the Arduino Bluetooth and use an off-the-shelf accelerometer board such as this one. This would probably be a lot easier to put together and get working, if off-the-shelf parts are OK, but still not a good beginner project.

Also in both cases you will need an application of some sort (phone, laptop, etc..) to download the data.

It might be most productive in your situation to take your idea to a company that custom makes electronics. The conversation will be most productive if you give them as much detail as you can about what it will do, what size it needs to be and what environment it will live in, as well as what your budget is, what your schedule is and how many you will need. There are many companies around that will do this for you, such as www.kr4.us

Mr Software. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my post. The information you have provided is certainly a great step forward for me in a positive way. Best regards

 

Mr Software. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my post. The information you have provided is certainly a great step forward for me in a positive way. Best regards

I too agree with MrSoftware. If what you want is to learn electronics and such, then you've come to the right place. Getting to where you want to get to would take a long, Long, LONG time, though... but we're here to help. On the other hand, if what you want is just the data so that you can later process it, and this is a one time thing, then I suggest you seek paid professional help. Good luck.

 

You may want to consider any of the Ethernet analog input data acquisition systems available out there. Systems by DATAQ or Measurement Computing to name a few. Some are tailored for vibration. I used Endevco Accelerometers quite a bit now found under Endevco Meggit Sensing. You take your signal conditioned signal be it pressure, temperature or vibration and feed it into an analog channel of your data acquisition device. Most of these devices come with simple basic data recording software easily configured to display and record whatever you want. You don't mention a budget which makes it difficult exactly what to suggest but there are turn key systems available which can be assembled like building blocks. I used the mentioned vibration sensors on jet engine test cells where high temperatures were a consideration. They are also easy to calibrate as to things like mv/G as to vibration.Anyway a WiFi network is something to consider and as mentioned it can also be done much less expensive or more expensive than what I mentioned. Pretty much a matter of your budget and your abilities.

Ron

 

I too agree with MrSoftware. If what you want is to learn electronics and such, then you've come to the right place. Getting to where you want to get would take a long, Long, LONG time, though... but we're here to help. On the other hand, if what you want is just the data so that you can later process it, and this is a one time thing, then I suggest you seek paid professional help. Good luck.

Thank you for your time and advice cmartinez i appreciate your help. Best regards. Mark

 

i am looking at building a circuit that would receive data from an accelerometer fitted to a Modal engine (to replicate a helicopter engine),

it would then store the data of flight duration before transferring the data via Bluetooth to a laptop/tablet.

my query is what type of board would be the most beneficial to use?

Also is it possible to fit an accelerometer (piezoelectric sensor) to the pc board?

thank you in advance for your time over this,

I failed to mention a few things in my earlier post. You really do not want to mount a shock and vibration sensor (Accelerometer) to a board but rather to wherever on the engine you want to sense or pickup vibration. The type accelerometer you want typically looks like the below:

The above use a side connector and are 10-32 threaded on the base for mounting. You can buy an amplifier easier than build from any of several accelerometer manufacturers, normally called a "charge amplifier". Using any of the data acquisition hardware I previously mentioned interfacing with a computer using WiFi is easily done, including data acquisition and saving the data. I can show you examples of a chart is you like. Doing what you wish to do is relatively easy and there is no need to write software but quality accelerometers are expensive for shockand vibration testing.

Ron

 

I failed to mention a few things in my earlier post. You really do not want to mount a shock and vibration sensor (Accelerometer) to a board but rather to wherever on the engine you want to sense or pickup vibration. The type accelerometer you want typically looks like the below:
View attachment 139495
The above use a side connector and are 10-32 threaded on the base for mounting. You can buy an amplifier easier than build from any of several accelerometer manufacturers, normally called a "charge amplifier". Using any of the data acquisition hardware I previously mentioned interfacing with a computer using WiFi is easily done, including data acquisition and saving the data. I can show you examples of a chart is you like. Doing what you wish to do is relatively easy and there is no need to write software but quality accelerometers are expensive for shockand vibration testing.

Ron

I failed to mention a few things in my earlier post. You really do not want to mount a shock and vibration sensor (Accelerometer) to a board but rather to wherever on the engine you want to sense or pickup vibration. The type accelerometer you want typically looks like the below:
View attachment 139495
The above use a side connector and are 10-32 threaded on the base for mounting. You can buy an amplifier easier than build from any of several accelerometer manufacturers, normally called a "charge amplifier". Using any of the data acquisition hardware I previously mentioned interfacing with a computer using WiFi is easily done, including data acquisition and saving the data. I can show you examples of a chart is you like. Doing what you wish to do is relatively easy and there is no need to write software but quality accelerometers are expensive for shockand vibration testing.

Ron

I had intended fitting the accelerometer/piezo electronic sensor to the dc motor itself to provide vibration of sorts. It is the programming that has stumped me after researching it so would be extremely grateful of any alternatives you could provide. Thank you for your time in replying to my post

 

I will get back to you tomorrow with a few ideas. I have some accelerometers laying around so I can give you a few options and ideas as to how to go about things in a few different ways. Being retired I have plenty of time for stuff like this. We can keep it simple and I will show you what doing it commercially would look like.

Ron