Interfacing a Load Cell With an Arduino Board | RobotShop Community

@Victor Ragusila: Based on the chips used in the RB-Onl-38 for amplification, the default gain resistor and the filter stage, you should have no issue obtaining data at a rate around 2-10 KHz. For reference, the raw voltage is passed through an amplifier and then a filter (to remove noise) and then sent directly to A0 of the Arduino board. From there, the way your setup your Arduino, its system clock divider and ADC clock divider will change how fast you can get those values in. For more details on handling the ADC peripheral properly, we recommend you check out Atmelā€™s application notes on it (there are many).

I bought the RB-Onl-38 strain gauge and a RB-Phi-122 load button, but the idea was to wire it to a GrovePI+ analog input and read the sensor using the grovepi.analogRead(sensor). Is that possible? How do I wire the RB-Onl-38 to the 4 pin analog input? Thanks

Hi, how exactly is the amplifier shield connected to the arduino? The article says the Analog pins A0 and A1 are connected to Strain1 and Strain2, but where is the arduino connection? Are there wires connecting pins in between the two boards, but we canā€™t see them because they are stacked? thanks.

@Leo: The connections between Strain1/2 and A0/A1 are done through the PCB itself (no visible wires) using signal traces. The two boards are connected by the males headers coming out from the bottom of the shield (RB-Onl-38) into the female headers of the Arduino board. You can see those headers in picture #3 of the product.

@Bruno: The usual pinout for the 4-pin Grove cable is as follows: [GND, VCC, NC, SIG], where GND is ground, VCC is a the power source (most likely 5 V DC), NC is ā€œNot Connectedā€ and SIG is the signal (analog output). To successfully connect the RB-Onl-38 to a Grove port, you will need a bit more than this. The Wheatstone bridge shield needs 5 connections: GND, VCC (5 V DC), VCC (3.3 V DC) and A0/A1 (Strain1/2).

I was thinking of purchasing the components in this tutorial to use with a 1000 lb load cell (1 mV/V rated output, 15 V max excitation) along with the recommend LCD screen (https://www.robotshop.com/blog/en/arduino-load-cell-lcd-17078). Would you expect this same system to work with the standard gain resistor values on a 1000 lb load cell? Do you anticipate any other problems? I am worried that this may not work for a load cell that has a range almost 100x greater.

Thank you very much.

@Gryph, It is very important to choose a Load-Cell sensor as close at the weight you need to measure. This will give you more accurate reading and less jumpy readings. Other than that the cell will work the same for a large capacity or a small one.

I need to power and read 10, + or - 10V loadcells, what would be the best way to do this with arduino or phidgets. I will then need to send out one 0 to 10 V signal to another system based on the readings I get from the 10 load cells. what is the best way to do this

can i connect the shield to A 500KG S type load cell ? and the arduino u suggested ?

@absaar: Yes, you can!

@Jonathan: In general, you would want to connect each of your load cells (or groups of them) to amplifiers. These would then be connected to a measuring device, such as the Phidgets board (4 channels) or to a microcontroller boardā€™s ADC pins (number of channels varies per microcontroller board). If you need more help with the design of your project or product selection, we recommend that you post on our forum instead (such as here or here).

Hello Sebastien,
So I received the S-Type 500kg Load cell and it has 5 wires, red,black,green,white and yellow. So Iā€™m not sure of how to connect the load cell to the Shield. Could i please get some help.
Thanks

@absaar: You can follow the exact same wiring as usual for the red/green/white/black wires, as seen in this and that image. For the yellow wire, simply connect it to the same connector as the black one, as seen here (third image on the product page). For reference, the yellow wire is usually the shielding and is not connected to the Wheatstone bridge created by the components on the load cell.

Hi,
Iā€™m working in one project and i want make a load cell wich send a signal everytime that the threshold quantity is reached , i donā€™t know if i can do this with a load cell+HX711 and an Arduino Yun, all exemples wich i saw was with an Arduino Uno,

i dont want to buy materials befor to be reassured thatā€™s feasible , plus i want know if this kind of kit ā€œload cell+HX711ā€ is good , i share the links with you:

tnk u so much for ur helpā€¦

@borja: Please note this comment section is for questions related to the Wheatstone Amplifier Shield (2 ch) [RB-Onl-38]. For troubleshooting and other technical questions, please refer to our forum here or here.
Please note we do offer some HX711 related products, such as the RB-Dfr-519 and the RB-Spa-1227.

Iā€™m having trouble understanding what the reference voltage offset potentiometer is doing. Iā€™ll preface my question saying that Iā€™m using the suggestion made to ~Tapio except I donā€™t have a capacitor included.

With a load cell connected and unweighted, ideally shouldnā€™t the output from the ADC be measuring zero? With this assumption Iā€™ve tried adjusting the appropriate potentiometer as close to zero as possible. The range of response from the load cell then becomes smaller. For example using the sample code on this page, when the the pot is adjusted to get ā€œnewReading_Strain1ā€ to its lowest value (111), the response can go from ~2 to ~708. If I adjust the pot all the way in the other direction my response range goes from ~310 to ~1017. If the pot is adjusted to about 511, then the response can go from ~2 to ~1015. Shouldnā€™t the reference voltage only zero out the voltage and not affect the response of the out reading?

@Peter The reference voltage potentiometer offsets the range of the output signal. The code on this page has been updated with this one. We suggest you to use the latest code. We also suggest you to post on the forum with your raw ADC output values.

can we operate sliding gate below rice mill hopper using arduino and load cell ???

@RDB As your question is more design related, please post your question on the forum
Also, we suggest you to provide more details about your project. Anything that help us understand what you are aiming for. (Diagrams, mockupsā€¦)

What is the black piece that you used to connect the wires to the amplifier shield in the 6th picture down?