Source for beam or S-type load cells?

How is it possible for a digital bathroom scale to be purchased for $9 at Walmart but no one has the beam & sensor inside for less than $160?

Where can I find any strain gauge / load cells for a couple bucks or do I need to buy the whole scale and harvest them? Surely someone sells them as a unit with a datasheet for $2 or something.

It is time for me to make my own Sim racing brake pedal and dammit if I don't just happen to have a nice set of Tilton pedals fresh from a circle track wreck to mount a sensor upon.

http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/143

Thanks alfa...

While hunting I came across this Garmin Load Sensor at Mouser

Even though its $30... it is already in a durable housing and can have force directly applied to it. Since this is a braking application and it will see millions cycles of a force of ~50-90lbs - it seems like a no-brainer vs a naked piezo type sensor.

As long as you can find one- that's the important thing.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Thanks alfa... While hunting I came across this Garmin Load Sensor at Mouser Even though its $30... it is already in a durable housing and can have force directly applied to it. Since this is a braking application and it will see millions cycles of a force of ~50-90lbs - it seems like a no-brainer vs a naked piezo type sensor.

For in the car, or modding sim pedals?

z31maniac wrote:

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Thanks alfa... While hunting I came across this Garmin Load Sensor at Mouser Even though its $30... it is already in a durable housing and can have force directly applied to it. Since this is a braking application and it will see millions cycles of a force of ~50-90lbs - it seems like a no-brainer vs a naked piezo type sensor.

For in the car, or modding sim pedals?

This. Looking to Data Aq, or use in a sim?

Sparkfun has lots of interesting force sensors: https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/143

Zombie thread, but interesting.

Wow! Blast from the past thread. It was for sim racing pedals and needed to handle a lot of force.

My actual solution (after fiddling with ways to fake it) was to just use a real Wilwood master cylinder and old pedal set from my race car. It was free - sitting on the shelf collecting dust. I filled it with Wesson veggie oil and instead of brake lines... I screwed a pressure sensor in the outlet. It worked great. It used a $30 Ultramarc U-HID Nano arcade I/O controller board to normalize the signal from the sensor and interface to USB.

I sold the whole setup on ebay almost 2yrs ago for $250

I've been fiddling with iRacing again lately and revision II might be forthcoming. Too bad I don't have any spare Wilwood pedal sets laying around.

EvanB wrote: Zombie thread, but interesting.

DOH!!

Ignoring the Canoe, load cells are what I designed for about 4-5 years of my engineering career. 

If anyone has question about load cells, signal conditioning, or transducerizing a component (pedals, shifter, steering column, suspension, etc) let me know. I dealt with a range of components including shifters, rockers, suspension (springs, pushrods, pan hard bars).

The components of a load cell aren't expensive, but unless it's a high volume consumer item, it's likely that it was assembled by a technician sitting at a bench so you are paying for the skilled labor. 

The canoe is persistent. 

At least it's paddling a decent quality load cell for use in a canoe.