Hi. I’m trying to figure out how to install load cells in a particular application.
I want to measure a horizontal force that is going to be applied to a vertical beam. The top of the beam is not attached to anything, and the base will be fixed, as shown in the attached file. The height at which the force is acting on the beam is unknown. I only want to know the magnitude of the force, and I don’t care about the height.
One idea I considered is to mount the base on rollers (or a parallelogram linkage) to constrain the motion to horizontal and then use that to push against a load cell. Is there a better way to do this, that maybe doesn’t involve any moving parts other than the slight flex of the load cells?
Eh, that might be close to your best option…the only thing is that you might need to calibrate the sensor according to how much the height affects the reading (pushing at the very top, with the sensor at the bottom, or vice-versa, will likely demonstrate a ‘deflected’ vector for the horizontal reading…via strain in the apparatus)
So, maybe test the min/max variance while applying a known amount of force to various heights on the beam, then ensure your code/mounting location is compensating for these factors
You won’t be able to tell the difference between a small force high on the beam and a larger force low on the beam. The beam bends the same. You’ll have to load the beam in at the same point (and angle, for that matter) to get meaningful force vales.
