Final Project Report

Title Digital Weight Machine

Author Names Maqsood Khandaker

Submission Date 05/06/09

A digital weight machine though not a novel idea, has not reached its full market potential.
Rooms for improvement include sensitivity, cost, and functionality for a diverse end user.
Diverse end users include those that are handicapped; such as blind and immobile. Other users
are in the manufacturing, security,construction and fishing industries. Such a diverse end user
requires a system that is designed for modularity. The team has investigated a digital weight
machine system that promotes functionality. This was achieved by focusing on the core
functionality required early in the development cycle. A micro-controller was used for data
processing (parsing, manipulation and transmission). Analog components were chosen to reduce
power consumption, parts counts, printed circuit board size and improve accuracy. The end
result is a very reliable and accurate system for measuring weight.
Scope of Work

The goals of this project was to use the electronic building blocks used in instrumentation system
design to improve a widely used consumer product, the weight machine. The building blocks of
an instrumentation system is shown below.

We have achieved this goal and the goals stated below.

Goals Accomplished
Modularity Yes
Accuracy Yes
Cost No
Power efficiency Yes

Technical Description

Parts List
Quantity Description Package Unit Cost Cost ($)
1 Voltage Regulator, LM7805 TO-220 0.25 0.25
2 Strain gauge J2A-XX-S033P-350 0.28 L X0.16 W 5 10
2 Resistors 350 Ohms Thick Film SMD 0.26 0.52
1 Instrumentation Amp. INA129PA 8-DIP 5.4 5.4
1 PIC 16F84 18-DIP 6 6
1 Resistor 10K ohms Thick Film SMD 0.26 0.26
1 Crystal Oscillator HC-49 0.72 0.72
4 Capacitor 1uF Ceramic SMD 0.03 0.1
1 Resistor 50 ohms Thick Film SMD 0.25 0.25
1 9V battery 1 1
24.5
Equipment
Quantity Description
1 NI-Elvis II DAQ board
1 Labview 10.1 software
1 Digital Multimeter
1 Soldering Station
1 Wire Cutters
1 USB PIC programmer
1 Super Glue
1 Assorted Wires
1 Bread Board

Tranducer
Two Vishay strain guages were used in a half-bridge configuration, with one in compression and
the other in tension. Strains gages are linear patterned, so they only change resistance in the

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direction of the strain experienced by the steel rod. The rod was sourced from an existing weight
machine. The original weight machine featured two rods, and they are held in place by U-shaped
steel mounting jackets.

The rod though conductive is used for its tensile strength properties. It has a linear stress-strain
relationship up until the yield point, after which material strain changes from elastic deformation
to plastic deformation. The yield point of the rod must be greater than maximum stress it is likely
to experience.

As shown above the strain gages are super glued on either side of the rod exactly in the center.
The placement and contact with the material undergoing strain is very important. The gage wire
leads must be shrink wrapped to prevent shorts. The leads must also be secured down to prevent
tearing from the gage, as they very delicate. Pareto's Law applies here, 80% of problems
encountered in the system were from 20 % of the sources. As can be seen in the picture below,
the leads are very close to each other and the conductive rod.

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The electrical wiring of the transducers can be seen below. A half-bridge circuit provides the
sensitivity required to measure human weight in the resolution needed. The ratio of R1 over R3
must equal the ratio of the top strain gage over the bottom one, in order to be balanced. Therefore
R1=R3. 350 Ohms. Potentiometers were used for R1 and R3, a DMM was used to verify
resistance values. Once the bridge was assembled, the NI Elvis II DAQ board was used to
measure the potential difference as shown below. A DMM is not sensitive (resolution) enough.
With the DAQ board we were able to truly balance the bridge by adjusting the potentiometers.
The potential difference is as close to zero as possible.

Conditioning circuit

The resistance change (3%) from the strain gages is very small, the resulting potential difference
is also very small. Too small to be useful, so it had to be amplified by an order of 1000. In
addition to high gain, high CMRR (common mode rejection ratio) and high input impedance was
also desired. A low power instrumentation amplifier was sampled from Texas Instruments for
this purpose. The wheat-stone bridge and amplifier were assembled on a breadboard. It was
powered by a 9 Volt battery connected to a 5 Volt regulator.

Performance Characterization
In this section you will compare how the numerical or analytic modeling of your device compared to the measured performance.
Note that the theoretical prediction of device performance will almost never correspond exactly to measured performance.
Provide descriptions or explanations of any measured discrepancies. Specifically provide:
• Tables and figures of data used to develop the final device performance specifications listed in your Specifications
section.
• A description of how you measured the data for all specifications.
• Any necessary formulae and methods for calculating theoretical device performance.
Any discrepancies between measured and predicted performance are explained; preferably quantitatively.

Insert your text here…

Rg was chosen was chosen to be 50 ohms for a gain of 1000. The potential difference from the
wheat-stone bridge was input into pins 2 and 3 respectively, the output pin 6 was fed into the
ADC of the microcontroller.

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This is the complete schematic. Here R3 and R4 are the strain gages and a larger footprint is used
so that the wires can be soldered onto the board. As shown in the 3D rendering below, the large
composite resistors represent the location of the strain gage leads.

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Performance Characterization

Theoretical performance
The following formula is used to calculate the output potential from the wheat-stone bridge.

Output=(R2*R4-R1*R3)/((R1+R2)*(R3+R4))

A matlab plot of the output voltage as a function of strain gage resistance change is shown
below.

It can be seen that maximum output voltage is 0.015 Volts. This then will multiplied by amplifier
gain, to a value more suitable for the 0-5 V 8 Bit range of the ADC.

Maximum stress applied to the rod can be calculated as shown below. This verified that the steel
rod was capable of the strain needed.

Stress = F/A (Max Weight in kg)/(Surface area of applied force in m^2)

Stress = 200 * 9.8/ 0.016129 (surface area of foot in meters)
Stress=121520.24 Pa
Tensile strength of steel = 500 MPa

Measured data

Labview 10.1 and the NI ELVIS II board was used to measure output voltages. The NI DAQ
assistant was used to rapidly setup the analog to digital converter port on the board to read
voltages into the VI. The output from the amplifier is input into port a0 + of the ELVIS board.

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The default settings were used by the DAQ assistant, therefore port a0 – must be connected to
the breadboard ground. A chart and table were used to view the output values. This VI is not
shown here as it is very simple and only used to prototype the system for input into the micro-
controller.

Weight (lbs) Output voltage (V)

120 1.33
130 1.45
190 2.12
200 2.23

We were confined to only using a small set of weights due to availability. However a linear
relationship has been observed. Based on a gain of 1000 and using the graph 1 and table 1 above
we can deduce that from 200 kg we were able to cause only 0.42 percent resistance change out of
the 3 percent available. Therefore we are only using 14 percent of the system capacity. We also
recorded an offset voltage of 0.7 volts with zero load.

Product Summary and Future Work

The system is designed to use analog transducers to convert weight, a physical force into
meaningful digital representation using sophisticated IC's. A strain gage whose resistance
changes with strain is used to measure the strain caused by stress applied to a steel rod. A half-
bridge wheat stone bridge is used convert these minute changes of resistance into voltages. These
voltages too small to be of use, are amplified by an instrumentation amplifier providing a very
accurate and reliable signal that is then fed to the micro-controller. The micro-controller converts
this analog signal into a digital signal 8 bits wide. These digital bits are fed to a LCD display to
display the current weight. The power of digital bits are that they can be manipulated and stored
in variety of way by the microcontroller.

Improvements
Five turn potentiometers were used to balance the bridge, however they are too coarse to
perfectly balance the bridge. In a production circuit, laser trimmed chip resistors would be used.
In order to get this accuracy while prototyping, 30 turn potentiometers is recommended. The
team also recommends using smaller strain gages, currently the 0.28 x 0.16 linear gage is being
utilized for 14 percent of its capacity. A smaller gage with smaller strain changes would be more
efficient.

The design of the system creates room for large areas of improvement. Specifically in the display
and usage of the digital bits. A micro-controller provides a lot of functionality. Peripherals such
as external memory, USB controller, wireless transceivers can be connected to the micro-
controller.

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Specifications

Specs (Tested)
Max Weight 200 lbs
Min Weight 0.5 lbs
Resolution 2 lbs
Voltage Supply 9 Volt battery

Appendix (Maqsood Khandaker)

I contributed to the transducer and conditioning circuit part of the project. Strain gages were
sourced, soldered and finally superglued onto steel rods. A half bridge wheat-stone bridge was
assembled and balanced. Labview DAQ equipment was used to verify this. Texas Instruments
was used to sample instrumentation amplifiers. The gain on these amplifier were adjusted until
output conformed to desired specs.

I used the fundamental building blocks of instrumentation system design a prototype a system
that is useful to mankind. I learned about transducers, specifically the strain gage and how they
must be chosen. I researched conditioning IC chips and how and why they enable us to use the
signals from these transducers. I learned about electronic circuit production methods. I used
CAD software to present a PCB solution as well.

All aspects of the project were valuable. They provide insight into valuable skills. The
knowledge to create a useful devices such as a instrumentation system has great value as well as
room for innovation. In order to innovate one must already be exposed to all ideas and schools of
thought. In order to run, we must learn how to walk. This project helped us to walk in this
industry.

Instructor and supporting staff were very helpful and knowledgeable. However there are rooms
for improvement. Students need to be exposed to PCB production from start to finish. This
requires expensive solutions, however can be done cheaply with more time and knowledgeable
people. Patenting should be covered by instructor. This is a high growth industry. Student need
to learn how to protect themselves.