Vehicle Applications - Michigan Scientific Corporation

The vast majority of Michigan Scientific’s products can be used in the Automotive Industry. From telemetry, wheel force transducers, fiber-optics, end of shaft slip rings, and tubular slip rings; our products are designed to provide optimal data collection from rotating components. Common usage examples include durability testing, suspension lab testing, brake development testing, traction studies, tire wear studies, and speed and position testing.

Transducers

- Automobiles

Michigan Scientific Wheel Force Transducers provide a means to determine the forces and moments on the wheel of a car or bus while in operation. In addition to being able to measure the forces and moments on vehicles, MSC wheel load transducers have the ability to measure wheel speed and position, as well as braking force measurements, traction studies, and tire wear. It is important to be able to perform tests under a variety of normal driving conditions in order to achieve adequate results; this includes almost any environment from sand and mud to puddles and potholes. The wheel load transducers are can be adapted to fit any production wheel of standard vehicles.

- Motorcycles

Wheel Force Transducers are also often used on motorcycles. The model LW-MC-3.5K is used to measure three forces and three moments in the x, y, and z coordinates, as well as wheel position and speed. They are designed to fit any motorcycle wheel by making custom front and rear wheel and hub adapters.

Telemetry

Telemetry is also a popular option for obtaining measurements from rotating components on a vehicle. Our telemetry presents a way to collect data from a shaft or wheel within a vehicle without the use of wires.

Slip Ring Assemblies

If the use of wires is permitted in the application, slip rings also provide an excellent way to collect data. End of shaft slip rings can be mounted on the end of a shaft. For example, it can be mounted on the end of a shaft in the engine in order to measure strain, temperature, or other variables. A tubular slip ring is designed to mount over a shaft. This option is used when it is not ideal to use an end of shaft slip ring or in order to obtain results directly from the shaft. Weatherproof tubular slip rings are often coupled with an optional built-in strain gage amplifier and/or an optional 60 pulse/rev encoder.

It is important to note that Michigan Scientific can take a production shaft and apply gages, calibrate, mount the slip ring, and return the complete weatherproof assembly. The shaft is then ready to install and use.

Recommended Products

Wheel Force Transducers

MSC manufactures a wide variety of sized transducers that are capable of measuring all the wheel forces and moments on passenger cars, light duty trucks, heavy duty trucks, vans, SUVs, class 8 trucks, heavy duty construction and farm equipment.

SR/ERT Slip Ring Assemblies

10, 20 or 36 circuits
Completely weatherproof
2” and 2.5” diameter rotor flanges
Rotation sensor, options:
(E) optical encoder, quadrature outputs (50, 100, 256, 360 or 512 ppr) & index pulse. Encoder pulse location accuracy 0.25°.
(R) resolver, which is an absolute analog position sensor.
(T) tachometer, optical encoder explained in (E) and instantaneous analog velocity and angular position outputs, which are easy to record.

CT2

The model CT2 transforms measurements from rotating coordinates into stationary SAE coordinates.

PS-DC

The PS-DC controls the amplifiers, and the excitation to strain gage bridges, and commands spinning strain gage amplifiers to apply their internal shunt calibration resistor to the appropriate arm of the strain gage bridge.

TR3D-B

Square Three Axis Load Cell
250 lb to 16,000 lb capacities
Measures forces in 3 perpendicular directions

Wheel Instrumentation Package - WIP

The WIP is a combination of MSC's precision strain gage amplifier and two precision thermocouple amplifiers. The WIP is ideal for collecting data in wheel applications.