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Gauss Meter

This page automatically streams an 18MB WMV movie which lasts about 2 minutes.

The movie below shows a prototype gauss meter built on a breadboard. The meter uses a PIC microcontroller to read the voltage from a hall effect sensor. The firmware then converts the reading from the PIC's ADC to a value in gauss.

Download Video (Right-click link, then do Save Target As)


The pair of flickering LEDs - red and white - indicate north and south poles respectively - note that, as the magnet approaches, they stop flickering before there is sufficient magnetic field strength to trigger the numeric display. In marginal magnet positions, the bias of flickering swings towards the appropriate pole.

The meter also has a peak hold function - a single button toggles between this and real-time. In peak hold mode, a green LED is lit. The peak hold is set to 'lock' into the first pole it sees - a higher value of the opposite pole won't trigger the meter. In the video, a value from the magnet's north pole is held before the magnet is flipped to present its south pole. The display continues to show the stored north value until the meter is switched back to real time mode, whereupon the current south pole is immediately indicated.

If the sensor is changed, the meter can be recalibrated by ensuring that the sensor is clear of magnetic fields and pressing a button. This stores an offset value based on the raw ADC reading, such that the new device's null voltage is taken as zero. You can see the effect of changing between calibrated ('CAL SEt') and raw ('CAL OFF') modes. The device in the video is a few gauss south of the default calibration. (The default is set to the middle of the ADC's 10-bit range of 0-1023.)

The meter stores its calibration setting in flash memory built into the PIC - note that the flickering LEDs are resumed after the meter is switched off and back on, rather than defaulting to the '8 gauss south' bias of this particular sensor.