DIY Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR)
Intro: DIY Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR)
STEP 1: Materials
Tools
- Soldering iron
- Hot glue gun
- Knife/razor
- Wire cutter
- Solder
- Hot glue
- One-sided copper PCB
- Conductive foam
- Wire
STEP 2: Sizing
Use the knife/razor to score your PCB into two plates that mirror each other. I went with approximately one-square-inch squares, but you could do any two shapes so long as there is copper in between.
Cut your foam into the same shape as the plate.
Solder one wire to each plate. You'll want to make sure the solder is going to hold the wire in place, so clean the copper beforehand if necessary and use plenty of solder.
Cut your foam into the same shape as the plate.
Solder one wire to each plate. You'll want to make sure the solder is going to hold the wire in place, so clean the copper beforehand if necessary and use plenty of solder.
STEP 3: Connecting the Pieces
Glue the three pieces together. Only glue along the outline of the FSR, otherwise it will not conduct well. For mine, I just glued the top and bottom of both plates to the foam.
STEP 4: Test It Out
Grab a multimeter and measure the resistance across your FSR. Your values will vary, but I got about 200 kiloohms at rest and 9 kiloohms when almost completely depressed. If your plates have a larger surface area, or the foam in between is thinner, these values will be smaller.
STEP 5: Notes
Variations
Protolab explanation of FSR use in the context of other sensors
Thanks to Dane Kouttron and Zach Barth for introducing this technique to me, and leaving a few FSRs around the eclub.
- Use it to Dim an LED (video + code)
- Use it to Make some noise (video)
- Try different kinds of foam (test resistance across the foam first to make sure it's conductive)
- Cut unusual shapes
- Test different foam configurations (e.g.: multi-layered foam)
- Test different plate materials (e.g.: aluminum foil on cardboard/plastic/wood)
- Make humongous FSR arrays
Protolab explanation of FSR use in the context of other sensors
Thanks to Dane Kouttron and Zach Barth for introducing this technique to me, and leaving a few FSRs around the eclub.
110 Comments
martinmilchevski2 3 years ago
IaciB 4 years ago
fra1985 5 years ago
Hi, I am very new on this, I need to build one of this concept with an FSR long a stripe of about 10cm and attached a display led where I can see the weight, is it possible ? and if yes, how can i do it ? thanks for your help is an important project for me :)
aramsden2012 6 years ago
would this concept work if the weight on the pressure plate was that of the weight of a pill or a door key? Am creating a school project and need to create an extremely sensitive pressure plate!
SarahM178 8 years ago
I'm looking to be able to apply potentially hundreds of pounds to a force sensor and detect the weight applied. Would this work for this project?
zggtf211 7 years ago
I wouldn't count on it. Your better off just getting a few load sensors from alibaba or ebay for a few bucks. These aren't very accurite.
carlosb 9 years ago
Hello, thank you for the tutorial, I want to know if there are any way to connect to arduino in order to get the variables changing when applying force, I need to do a surface that will be able to detect when people hands over it and then create a reaction in a liquid (non newtonian) using speakers / changing frequencies depending force applied.
can it be possible?
thanks!
tcanedy 9 years ago
if you wanted to measure force in the hundreds of pounds could this work?
Lftndbt 15 years ago
kylemcdonald 15 years ago
I'm guessing a keyboard circuit wouldn't be very useful for making a matrix of these; but I haven't really dissected enough keyboards, so don't let me dissuade you :)
ac-dc 15 years ago
wblakesx 10 years ago
ashcocks 15 years ago
ac-dc 15 years ago
kylemcdonald 15 years ago
ac-dc 15 years ago
kylemcdonald 15 years ago
ac-dc 15 years ago
tosp 13 years ago
leevonk 15 years ago