Micro-Measurements Integrates Advanced Sensors Technology

The Micro-Measurements brand of Vishay Precision Group has announced the successful integration of its own proprietary Advanced Sensors Technology into strain gage products for industry best-in-class design and performance characteristics.

Advanced Sensors Technology applies tangible specification and manufacturing process improvements, along with industry-exclusive strain gage sensor design techniques, for direct customer benefit. The innovation behind Advanced Sensors Technology reflects many decades of Micro-Measurements R&D experience, gained across a global portfolio of thousands of successful applications, with other refinements achieved via ongoing customer feedback.

Strain gage (strain gauge) technology, as a key internal component of finished sensor designs, is a long-recognized industry standard. The strain gages are used to detect a change in electrical resistance, occurring in response to an applied force. In addition to their reliability, strain gages are relatively compact and low cost. This has facilitated their widespread adoption into many of today’s force, load, position, pressure, tension, weight, and strain sensor designs. Such traditional designs have typically called for the bonding and soldering of anywhere from one to four individual strain gages within a single proprietary configuration. Among these, the full Wheatstone bridge, a four-strain-gage arrangement, has consistently offered the highest measurement accuracy, sensitivity and extraneous temperature cancellation.

Further design improvements over traditional strain gage types include smaller and tighter grid-resistance tolerances, improved gage-to-gage repeatability, and enhanced measurement stability. All enhancements are implemented via a fully optimized fabrication process, incorporating the very latest in tooling, methods, and equipment. As a result, the prototype design and manufacturing of anywhere from a single strain gage piece up to OEM volumes may be easily accommodated, with uniform high quality and competitive lead times.

The Micro-Measurements Advanced Sensors Technology product portfolio includes linear, shear and circular gages, arranged as individual, half-bridge and full-bridge configurations, in ranges from 350Ω to 20kΩ, with added flexibility in mounting options. The technology improves grid-to-grid tolerances and matching over traditional strain gage manufacturing techniques, enabling better sensor performance. In the case of full-bridge gage configurations, all intra-bridge connections are integrated directly into the pattern itself, eliminating the need for traditional intra-bridge soldering. The addition of gold-plated solder pads improves solder-joint reliability, while reducing the risks of solder pad oxidation prior to lead wire attachment. These processes further ensure the close matching of grid-to-grid thermal characteristics and bridge circuit thermal output cancellation specifications, both of which are essential to strain gage measurement accuracy.