ROADTRAX BL TESTEQUIPMENTFor testing the Roadtrax® BL Piezoelectric Axle
Sensor, it is good to have an oscilloscope and a LCR
meter. The LCR meter will be used for testing the sensor
before installation and immediately after, but before
opening the road to traffic.
With the LCR meter, you will be testing thecapacitance of the sensor and cable, the dissipation
factor, and the insulation resistance. For the capacitanceand the dissipation factor, the values found with the LCR
meter will be compared with those on the data sheet thatis included with each sensor. For insulation resistance, wewant a value that is greater than 20 MΩ, basically “OL” onmost meters. An example of an LCR meter is model
380193: Passive Component LCR meter from Extech(http://www.extech.com/instruments/product.asp?catid=56&prodid=349).
After the sensors have been installed, the next
testing will be done with an oscilloscope. When a vehicle
drives over the installed sensor, it is possible to view thevoltage output of the sensor and record it for futurecomparison by using an oscilloscope. PicoScope
manufactures and sells very versatile devices that connect
to a laptop via USB so that waveforms can easily besaved. A good example would be PicoScope model 2204
(https://www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/2200/picoscope2200-specifications).
There are also several models offered by Fluke,
however, those are limited in the number of samples thatcan be saved before it would be necessary to uploaded
them to a computer. Furthermore, the quality of the saved
image is grater with the PicoScope which can be clearlyseen by comparing the two pictures below.
.

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Figure 1: Sample from a PicoScope

Figure 2: Sample from a Fluke

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