Hi All--just had to add some seasoning to the soup.... ADXLxx devices are NOT "very good" except in being cheap. Look at their signal to noise ratio--the 05's used to be 10:1! probably improved some by now--but still not suitable for much past airbag sensing--definitely not adequate for seismic work or accurate tilt sensors. (Sorry Wagner--I got bit hard by these things a few years ago) The ICsensors (now EG&G) can go for <$100, and I've got one going on the space station with a gain of 1.9 Million to one--giving 200 micro-G's full scale. Thats good and cheap. Had some real problems getting there, though. A lot of 60 cycle stuff kept showing up--tried shielding and all--no effect. Finally stuck the sensor in a foam lined box, and noise went away--was acoustically coupling off the air conditioner motors on the roof. For pure cheap--look at the piezo film devices AMP Connectors are selling. You can get a free kit to play with even. Basically just a film with a piezo coating applied--flex it, and you get a voltage out--NO current, but hi voltage, so it needs a very hi impedance amp (commonly referred to as a charge amp) as the first stage. Might be perfect for sensing pendulum impacts. A couple of companies are actually selling multi-axis acell's based on this stuff. NOT suitable for DC though. Kelly At 12:51 PM 10/16/99 -0400, you wrote: >Sure, the ADXL05 and ADXL50 are very good and easy to interface, but by >the common "low cost" expression at this list I thought you were talking >about cents... :) > >Peter Keller wrote: >> >> No idea for the moment. It was only a thought how to recognize an obstacle >> on a moving device by looking at the acceleration. I found some >> interesting parts from analog devices. Costs are about $20. That's ok for >> an experiment. More infos and results later. >> Peter >> >> Wagner Lipnharski schrieb: >> >> > Ok, now I got curious... >> > >> > What is the accuracy, resolution and maximum cost you expect from this >> > sensor? >> > >> > Wagner > > William K. Borsum, P.E. -- OEM Dataloggers and Instrumentation Systems & San Diego, California, USA