ultrasound detector. rpi ?

Hello Gard,

as a matter of fact in my opinion you should see the things in a reverse way to make easier for you finding the solution. The general answer to your question is yes, because Raspberry PI includes a sufficient number of interfaces to make it possible and the availability of a complete and reliable Debian/Linux distribution (i.e. raspian) gives you the needed programming power and the needed flexibility. Personally I suggest to orient your choice immediately to the last and fastest model Raspberry PI 2 model B (including 1 Gb or ram instead the 500 Mb of the previous ones).

In your specific case instead to the side of the ultrasound detector, please let me know if you have already pointed to some circuitry or some kind of IC that has the capabilities you need. This is external to the Raspberry. As the detector / IC is focused, it is possible to decide the kind of circuitry should be adopted. In theory we should expect I2C os single wire connection, serial connection, USB 2.0 or some direct I/O pin (available from the Raspberry PI GPIO connector).

Without more information I think it is not possible for me to give you more specific suggestions.

Enrico

well i haven't actually got to the point of getting parts or planning the thing, i don't have the knowledge on this kind of stuff, but i can give you a little background as of what i am going to use it for, i deliver ultrasound units on ships to kill algae before they reach the ship it self, so you save money on treatments, but as of now the units are kind of new in to the market and some are faulty, so the unit that sends out the ultrasound, gets broken but since you cant hear ultrasound i cant tell if they are broken or not. i have some what knowledge of building with raspberry pi but i need your help because i dont know what to do :/, thanks for the reply

well i haven't actually got to the point of getting parts or planning the thing, i don't have the knowledge on this kind of stuff, but i can give you a little background as of what i am going to use it for, i deliver ultrasound units on ships to kill algae before they reach the ship it self, so you save money on treatments, but as of now the units are kind of new in to the market and some are faulty, so the unit that sends out the ultrasound, gets broken but since you cant hear ultrasound i cant tell if they are broken or not. i have some what knowledge of building with raspberry pi but i need your help because i dont know what to do :/, thanks for the reply

Are you going to look for ultrasonic vibration in the water or on the hull of the ship.

Is the operating frequency always 40kHz.

Are you sure you want  a readout of the frequency and not the amplitude of the signal ?

You need to define these things to get advice on a suitable transducer.

You don't need a computer at all to make this kind of measurement - probably the best way to do it is to use a cheap DMM to indicate the output from the analogue circuits you need to convert the signals form the transducer to something useful.

MK

Are you going to look for ultrasonic vibration in the water or on the hull of the ship. :  the hull

Is the operating frequency always 40kHz. : no there are two standards, its 40KHz and 28KHz

Are you sure you want  a readout of the frequency and not the amplitude of the signal ? : i just need to know if they are working on the right KHz

thanks for the help, dint realize that you need to know these things aswell, sorry about that

To make an accurate broadband vibration measuring instrument which you can attach in  a simple and temporary way to a ships hull would be very very difficult and cost a  great deal of money.

Kistler make suitable accelerometers but the are very pricey (think £1000+) and hard to attach to get a good response at 40kHz.

If you can settle for an indication rather than proper calibrated measurement you could use ultrasonic cleaning transducers in reverse (ie as sensors). You can get these cheaply (< £10) from many sources (try Alliexpress.com). You will still need to design amplifiers and an indicating circuit as well as do some experimentation. You'll need to buy two transducers, one for 28kHz and one for 40kHz.

Or you could just connect it to a good DMM like Keysight 34461A (you need a good one to get the bandwidth with mV signals) - borrow one before buying because you might still need an amplifier - I'm expecting you will get 10s of mV from the transducer but I haven't tried it !

MK

ok so ill borrow a DMM Keysight  34461A34461A hook it up to a transducer(28kHz and 40 kHz which will make the sound energy to volts if that works it would be amazing well i dont need super accurate i just need to know if its working so mabye it calculate average and read it out but thanks that helped me a lot i will look in to it and one last question before i try this out will the 28kHz transducer and the 40 kHz read out different voltages Thanks again i will mark it as correct after i test it

The outputs will be different and you'll need to use a screened cable to connect the meter to the transducer.

On reflection you might do better with something like this if you know how to work it:

Owon Hds1022m-n Handheld 2 Channel 20 MHz Oscilloscope + DMM | Rapid Online

Cheaper than the Keysight and much more portable - will also show you frequency as well.

There are loads of people offering cheap handheld scopes - see what you can get locally.

MK

If it is a ultrasonic tranducer, should work both ways based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transducer

C

ah ok thanks !, im going to try this the following week, ill keep you guys updated