Any plans for a Tri-Axial Accelerometer package?

Archive New Product Ideas
1

Hi

I have justed started working on an idea which requires a tri-axial accelerometer. I could go with three singles put on the x-y-z axis but then I would need to worry about mounting them correctly. Having lokoed through the products on offer I noticed you only based them on dual-axis accelerometers. I was wondering if there were any tri-axial based ones in the pipeline, or can alternative manafacturers acc. be used? I am after a package accelerometer that can be hooked upto a computer via serial or USB ports, and ideally would like to hook up 2 or 3 devices.

Thanks

Tony

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Well, considering Sparkfun’s penchant for Analog iMEMS devices, I’d suggest you wait. Analog has a prerelease entry (no info yet) on a 3 axis 2G accelerometer on their website. I’m considering smacking around my old vector mechanics and seeing how many devices and at what accelerations I need to duplicate having an onboard gyroscope.

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Yeah I noticed the prerelease but as you say there are no details at all, not even an expected date. So finding an alternative solution looks like the only path, as it could be a long wait otherwise :slight_smile: Would be interested to know if you have worked with more than one of the serial devices on a single computer, as I would like to have maybe 3 of them I am thinking the best route would be to use a serial to USB converter so I can plug all three in easily. Otherwise I think I would need to invest in a module to handle the acc. devices, with a single link to a computer. I am not too hot on electronics (been a while) otherwise I would be making my own package up using raw iMEMs myself.

Thanks

Tony

4

Yes, I personally would order an ICD-2, get some USB PIC’s, and go at it myself :slight_smile: One breakout board mounted accelerometer (normally) and one on right angle headers would build it simply. Then put it in a nice sealed box and fill with parrafin wax. There, a nice, solid, 3D accelerometer package. Hope it doesn’t get too hot.

I’ve looked at the accelerometers available from other manufacturers (Namely the Motorola spinoff Freescale). They’re usually aimed at consumers. One other thing you may want to investigate is that the Z-axis accelerometers (perpendicular to the PCB) usually have much higher levels of noise and lower bandwidth. I’m waiting to see if the Analog 3 axis unit has similar problems.

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Thanks for the information, its given me further inspiration :slight_smile: Interting point you make about the Z axis noise levels, hadn’t noted that on any specs I had read. I had primarily been looking at devices from Crossbow but they were pretty expensive when packaged up. I am really after a cheaper but effective solution to see if my idea is workable at all, and something thats easy to prototype with. As im not too hot on programming chips and such I would spend too much time on that than my app, being a software developer by trade.

Thanks again, and i’ll watch this space for news on their 3d acc.

Tony