How to choose a practical pressure sensor (1)
1. What is the pressure value for sensor measurement?
A: The first thing you need to know is the maximum pressure required in your system. Then the maximum pressure sensor pressure range required should be 1.5 times the maximum pressure required by the system. These additional pressure ranges are due to many systems, particularly water pressure and process control, with pressure spikes or continuous pulses. These spikes may reach five to ten times the “maximum” pressure and may cause damage to the sensor. Continuous high-voltage pulses that approach or exceed the sensor's maximum rated pressure also reduce sensor life. Therefore, simply increasing the rated pressure of the sensor is not a perfect solution, because it will sacrifice the resolution of the sensor. Buffers can also be used to attenuate spikes, but this is only a compromise because it reduces the sensor's response speed.
2. What accuracy does the sensor need to achieve?
A: Accuracy is a commonly used term in the industry to describe sensor output errors. It comes from nonlinearity, hysteresis, non-reproducibility, temperature, zero balance, correction and humidity effects. Usually we specify the accuracy as a combination of nonlinearity, hysteresis and non-reproducibility. For many sensors, the “accuracy” is lower than the nominal value due to factors such as temperature and zero balance. The cost of a sensor with higher accuracy is higher, so does the corresponding system really need such high precision? A system using high-accuracy sensors and low-resolution instruments is an inefficient solution.
