G-Force Monitor

Of course..!!This is something not everyone will find themselves acquainted with. But if you make a wild guess for G yielding a geo or gravity, you land safe geek. The g-force associated with an object is its acceleration relative to free-fall. The force measured due to any acceleration other than the acceleration due to gravity is termed as g-force.

G-Force Monitor is a device that measures G-Forces in a moving car. This is a very interesting project. Although such devices are also available commercially, though I say this time and again; but making one on your own saves a lot on the pocket and adds tons on the brains.

It uses PIC 16F877 microcontroller, PIC firmware written in MikroC and software written in Delphi 7. The G-Force is measured using an accelerometer sensor. After much research, the designer had struck to a Three-Axis accelerometer board with ADXL330 sensor produced by Analog Devices. The 3-axis accelerometer board features a small, thin, low power, monolithic IC which measures acceleration with a minimum full-scale range of ±3 g and has 5V voltage level. The microcontroller is connected to IC MAX232 to enjoy a serial connection between the computer and itself. A 9V battery is used for power supply.

In electronics, a firmware is the most basic level software without which a device would be rendered useless. Another crucial thing about this device here is also its firmware. The firmware had been designed in Delphi 7. The user interface of the firmware here is very convenient. It has two graphics; a bigger one for time recording and a smaller one to show last 100 samples. You also have a calculator to make calculations and three real time displays. Besides, there are some conventional functions like New file, Save file, Open file, etc. Some specific buttons include Show Log, Auto Zoom, Swap Charts, Move Zero point and many more. Visit the designer’s blog for acute details.