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A project log for OP-AMP Weight Scale

Bending IC's to measure weight - Component Abuse Challenge 2025

trashtronictrashtronic 10/20/2025 at 12:560 Comments

Mechanical stability was huge issue in previous prototype - glue has too little surface area to bond corretly to IC's package. So second prototype was designed and built - this time platform is supported by two IC's which made it much stiffer and enabled putting heavier weights than previously.

Second prototype is bonded to protoboard with hot glue, also I added some cone-shaped legs because solder at bottom side prevented whole contraption from standing straight. This time two op amps were connected, also i added RC low pass filter made from 2K resistor and 100n capacitor to filter some higher frequencies. Op amps are connected with thin magnet wire pulled out from defective relay. It works great and ensures that wires do not make any mechanical stress of the internal die. Unfortunate side effect is susceptibility to radio waves, during data capture whole contraption in big tin can for shielding.

During measurement i also checked if temperature is influencing data and it is, but effect is much less noticeable than putting 50g (25g per IC) of "load".

Why IC manufacturers are assuming that end users can load their products only in electrical terms?

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