Experimenting with Vibration Sensors Part 1: The Kit

Introduction

Hi everyone!

I'm Charlie and I'm going to have some fun with this vibration sensor. The idea is to measure the vibration that is present in the boards of a vehicle, specifically in a vehicle that is designed and assembled in my work (Autonomous electric vehicle in elevated railway).

Also, to have a reference I will measure the vibration in different location of my car, this is to see the difference in this two different transit system.

The Kit

We have three things in the kit:

The Sensor

The Nucleo board

The Bluetooth Board

First Test

The first thing it was to remove the connector and solder the wires to the board, specifically in this way:

Black to Ground.

Red to 5V.

White to PA0.

Then I installed the software SMT32CubeMonitor and STM32CubeIDE.

I flashed an example for ADC reading, also a minimal configuration for the STM32CubeMonitor.

Then I put the sensor in the top of my smartphone and using a vibration app I got his readings.

Conclusion

The sensor is small but robust, the Nucleo board was really helpful to did a quick test.

I have to work with the ADC reading to have the best performance with this specific sensor.

Also, I have to check if the flash memory could be enough for a full test or maybe I would have to add an external memory.

First impression, the sensor is expensive but it's small, robust and it has great specifications.