I'm thinking about building an automated homebrew system for my final project (due at the end of spring term, 2009). I'm not worried about anything except a way to take a specific gravity reading a few times throughout the process. Any ideas?
So far I've considered buying a pre-built digital hydrometer and gutting out the transducer (too expensive). One design I read about uses a weight in the inside of a PVC tube that is displaced relative to the density of the liquid that into which it's submerged. The description said that it uses a hall effect array to measure the displacement.
I was thinking about building my own, and scrapping the hall effect sensors.
I've attached a very crude mspaint sketch showing what I mean. I'm thinking of having a hunk of material with a 1 g/cc density that suspends into the liquid, and two plates on the top of that material with an LED between them. I could have phototransistors built onto the wall of the pipe around the LED. Whatever level the LED rises to is then sent to the processor which logs it and displays the number.
I've never tried anything like this before, and am hoping that someone here might have some great ideas.
Thanks,
Mike
So far I've considered buying a pre-built digital hydrometer and gutting out the transducer (too expensive). One design I read about uses a weight in the inside of a PVC tube that is displaced relative to the density of the liquid that into which it's submerged. The description said that it uses a hall effect array to measure the displacement.
I was thinking about building my own, and scrapping the hall effect sensors.
I've attached a very crude mspaint sketch showing what I mean. I'm thinking of having a hunk of material with a 1 g/cc density that suspends into the liquid, and two plates on the top of that material with an LED between them. I could have phototransistors built onto the wall of the pipe around the LED. Whatever level the LED rises to is then sent to the processor which logs it and displays the number.
I've never tried anything like this before, and am hoping that someone here might have some great ideas.
Thanks,
Mike