Make your own G-Force Meter
Are you an avid street racer Of course you are. When you’re drifting down Main Street you want to know how many G’s you’re pulling, right Learn to build a personal G-Force meter to see just how many G’s you experience when accelerating, braking, and drifting. Hmmm…it would be interesting to take this thing on a roller coaster. According to Wikipedia: “Notably, Goliath at Six Flags lets riders experience 4 g for six seconds, making hundreds of people pass out daily.”
Anyways, let’s get back on subject. The purpose of this project is to build a device that measures acceleration/tilt on one axis (backward/fordward) capable of fitting onto the window of a standard car. The device will have 3 7-Segment LED Displays to show the instantaneous acceleration measurement to 2 decimal accuracy. You’ll find the parts as well as build instructions on the author’s website.
Difficulty: Medium
Time Invested: 7 Hours
Power Circuit - The power circuit is a 9v Battery hooked up to the LM7805 with a 10uF capacitor wired to output & ground of the LM7805 to keep a steady 5v DC.
Sensor Circuit – The sensor is very simply wired with one wire from the Y-axis measurement spot to the AN0 port on the PIC. This is an analog input port and we’ll use it as such. The other pins on the sensor aren’t used, aside from Vcc & Gnd.
7-Segment LEDs – The wiring of the 3 7-Segment LED displays may seem somewhat random. The reason it looks strange is because I wrote the software and wired everything up before drawing out a proper schematic. This made my schematic drawing look pretty strange but the software and the actually wiring very straight forward.
Read
