Guidance Needed on using: SEN-08685 FlexiForce Pressure Sensor - 100lbs.

Sensors Force & Weight
1

Hello, I am teaching a senior engineering class and my three students are working on a Capstone project. They are using two Flexiforce Pressure sensors we bought from SparkFun to measure the weight of a physical therapy patient. There will be two sensors used, one for each foot. We want to be able to use Matlab/Arduino/Sensors to measure the force/weight each foot is exerting on the floor to report what percentage is on each foot. There are three use cases for the PT.

We are reading the document: FLX-Best-Practice-Electrical-Integration-RevB.pdf from the TekScan website: https://www.tekscan.com/resources/produ … rce-sensor

We cannot locate a MCP6004 Op Amp so we are going to try to use a LM324 op amp. The voltage divider setup is only good to 100lbs(per foot)…we need much higher capabilities…hence the op amp setup.

Can you give any guidance on how to setup the circuit with the force pressure sensor?

Thanks in advance, Marty Brown 859-963-1113

FLX-Best-Practice-Electrical-Integration-RevB.pdf (4.94 MB)

2

Those are very poor measuring sensors and should really be used for only the coarsest of determinations.

For example, is the patient seated or standing? For airbag deployment purposes, is the passenger seat occupied?

Further, the 100 pound force capacity is a property of the sensor’s material and construction characteristics. This capacity isn’t dependent on the instrumentation, op amp circuits, etc.