Hello Element14 Community,
I am trying to find a torque sensor like seen in this non-English video, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Kas
Hello Element14 Community,
I am trying to find a torque sensor like seen in this non-English video, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Kas
The torque calibration at motor stall is easy - you need a pulley on the motor shaft and a piece of cotton (for low torques) and a weight. All you need to do is increase the motor current until it can just lift the weight. Once things are moving it gets much more difficult to estimate the torque actually applied to the load because the mass and inertia of things starts to matter.
MK
Aldi sells springs!? Were they spring onions? Or spring greens?
If you're prepared to spend a few thousands you can buy a torque meter or even a full dynamometer from Magtrol or Torquemeters.
I designed the electronics for a torque meter on an aircraft engine that used the wind-up of the shaft as the strain element. The shaft had 2 sets of timing markers that were detected by proximity sensors. The time between rising edges varies with the wind-up of the shaft and hence the torque. Obviously this was measuring high torques, no expense spared, but the whole concept could be scaled down to be small and cheap if you can use, say, a nylon shaft with a couple of timing discs.
Easiest solution is to use two or four load cells and with some basic physics use the force applied to the load cells to calculate the applied torque to whatever it is that the system is connected too. The other solution is just to have the wire run over a pulley that is pushing down/up on a load cell, this removes the need for torque equations and just relates the tension to force applied vertically downward/upwards onto the load cell allowing for a constant tension on the wire during winding.
Kas
Similarly, you could just measure the position (instead of load) on a spring tensioner.