Looking to get started with adding accelerometers to your projects? Here’s a handy guide – “An accelerometer can help your project understand its surroundings better. Is it driving uphill? Is it going to fall over when it takes another step? Is it flying horizontally or is it dive bombing your professor? A good programmer can write code to answer all of these questions using the data provided by an accelerometer. An accelerometer can help analyze problems in a car engine using vibration testing, or you could even use one to make a musical instrument. “ – Link.
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I’ve been contemplating an accelerometer for a while now for a project in my truck. My truck, like most modern automatics, has an overdrive option for the transmission. Unlike other cars I’ve driven, the OD is actually controlled by a simple button on the dashboard. Normally, it’s on, unless I know I’m going to be going through a mountainous area of a highway. Reason being, when I’ve got the cruise control on, and I’m going up hill, it’s a constant ruuuum, thump, ruuuum, thump as the overdrive kicks in and out. If the area isn’t all up and down, it’s a PITA to keep turning the OD off and on in an attempt to achieve a balance between comfort and gas savings.
So, my thought is I’ll hook in a little circuit that can detect when the cruise control is on, and I’m heading up a particular grade (I’ll have to tune it, as I’m not sure the minimum grade that causes the annoyance), it’ll disable the OD. When I’m on my way back down, it’ll turn it back on. It’s a simple circuit, but I’m assuming I’ll need an accelerometer that’s less sensitive to vibrations and such in order to make it more accurate.
Anyone have a suggestion for an accelerometer for this purpose?