Thursday, December 7, 2017

Water manometer verification of sensor

I built up a new sensor board and, after a whole lot of pain with previous sensor damage, I am taking it slowly. I only installed one of the pressure sensors: the gage sensor for measuring dynamic pressure in the center hole of the probe.

To figure out whether the readings it's giving me are even remotely related to reality, I made a very simple water manometer and connected it to my sensor:


Meanwhile, I set up my PC with an XBee to receive the serial data:


I then applied a measured water column:


and 4.94 in. H2O should be 1229 Pa. My sensor board reports its data in SI units, so looking at the numbers coming off it:


the reported 1224 Pa is close enough for me. This was not an attempt to calibrate the sensor, or to determine its accuracy, but rather simply to figure out if I had a serious math error or mis-configuration somewhere. We are good to go now.

Next up, installing the sensor on the Toyota mast and getting some "flight" data. As I mentioned before I'm probably going to have to make a foray in to digital filtering. Expect more soon.

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