Electronic – Remove spikes from Load Cell readings

8051adcdigital filterembeddedload cell

I have developed load indicator interfaced with load cell to display the value of load. The device is to be used in on-line weighing of a bag that is moving over the conveyor. Due to the mechanical movements there is a spike in load reading and in order to remove those spikes i need to implement software based filter to stabilize the readings.

Can anybody point me to the right direction, on where to start ? I am using 8051 micro controller and ADS1231 ADC for converting the analog voltage levels to load value.

Best Answer

These things happen in checkweighers all the time and the common way around this is for the software to simply ignore the glitch i.e. throw away those readings that look suspicious.

A lot of checkweighers also use an optical device to sync the software up with the position of the "thing" to be weighed thus the software knows when it should be using readings to calculate weight.

This problem is usually due to cantilever resonance as the "thing" initially slides onto the edge of the weigh-part of the conveyor.

I reckon you should show a picture of weight results versus "thing" position as it passes over the weighing section. This will allow further analysis by me and others. I recommend that you have an ADC rate that would take several tens of readings (if not hundreds) as the thing passes through the weigh section.