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Date:         Fri, 8 Aug 2008 12:41:02 -0400
Reply-To:     Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject:      Re: [NVC] Engineers: quick and cheerful vibration analysis?
Comments: To: Mike Elliott <camping.elliott@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <4899232A.8030806@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

For what you're trying to do, software, sensors and data are way overboard I think. Match the solution to the problem... you simply want to be able to verify that at X tire pressure you do or don't have an additional level of "bounciness" whatever that means correct?

What not just grab a cheap video camera, some bungees, a plastic wide mouth jar big enough for a tennis ball, a ping pong ball, and a softball for example(you might need something much heavier/lighter depending on the displacement and frequency of bounce). Put the tires at X pressure, write that on a piece of paper and "show" this to the running camera(to link that tire pressure with the video with certainty) that is now strapped to the trailer and recording the ball in the see through plastic container. Ride in a set path that you will repeat at whatever speeds you would like. Concentrate on road safety and consistency in driving. Change the tire pressure a few times and repeat. Simply watch the tape, and "see" what you can see... You could likely run this test and have an idea of what you want in the same amount of time it would take to track down a good sensor for cheap, install the software, run the test, and analyze the data.. and I'm almost 100% certain that interpreting the simple visual data will be much more intuitive for your average bear than raw numbers... especially if you aren't sure of what range of displacements and frequencies you're starting with(which you would really need to ballpark to even pick the correct sensor)

Hope this helps,

Jim Akiba

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Mike Elliott <camping.elliott@gmail.com> wrote: > This is a question for the engineering geeks here. > > Say you were towing a little trailer behind your Vanagon. Say that the > trailer had a rudimentary suspension consisting only of leaf springs. Say > that this trailer also had tires, the pressure of which could be adjusted: > higher pressure results in a harsher ride, while lower pressure results in > a softer ride. Say you wanted to determine the optimum pressure of ride vs > tire squishiness but were unable to find a small boy to ride in that > trailer to report back about smoothness of ride v tire pressure while the > experiments were being conducted, so lacking that small boy, your thoughts > naturally turn to instrumentation. Okay, so say you had a laptop computer > (WinXP) which could ride in the passenger seat, and /three/ business days > in which to acquire the needed sensor (accelerometer?) as well as the > software to display the ride bounciness. > > Could it be done? > > -- > Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott >


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