

Open-Source Quartz Crystal Microbalance - deutronium
http://openqcm.com/

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deutronium
I just found this on hackaday recently, it sounds fascinating how you can use
a quartz crystal, which when a weight is applied changes the frequency enough
you can get extremely precise readings.

One thing I'm wondering though, is aren't quartz crystals effected by
temperature a lot? Is there a simple way this would be compensated?

~~~
nurbl
It depends on the way the crystal is cut, usually they are optimized to have a
maximum around room temperature so that effects from variations are minimized.
The effects might partly be compensated by measuring the temperature and
applying a correction to the data since the temperature dependency is known,
but the sensitivity is also affected. So, temperature control is definitely
important for accurate measurements.

