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What makes smartphones tilt-sensitive? Will they retain this ability in zero-gravity conditions?

You are right, in a sense. These sensors do need moving components. However, they are a chip on your board. Tiltsensors (actually, accelerometers), and gyroscopes (and pressuresensors, ...) are part ...
Joren Vaes's user avatar
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17 votes

What makes smartphones tilt-sensitive? Will they retain this ability in zero-gravity conditions?

The sensory device is a weight on a spring. It is indeed "small-scale motion of some tiny components of the sensor", and it's also "another chip on a circuit board". The key word here is MEMS. It's ...
pjc50's user avatar
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15 votes
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Identify this component with a weight inside a cylinder

It looks like a vibration motor. A small electric motor with an unbalanced weight on the end of the shaft. Apply a small voltage and it should spin and vibrate. Looks a lot like this one.
evildemonic's user avatar
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10 votes

What makes smartphones tilt-sensitive? Will they retain this ability in zero-gravity conditions?

All the comments and answers are great to help you understand how it is possible. But, here's something that will help you understand how it's actualized in real products. (image source) This is a ...
bitsmack's user avatar
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10 votes

What makes smartphones tilt-sensitive? Will they retain this ability in zero-gravity conditions?

Theoretically, yes, a phone or tablet could work just as well in say the International Space Station (ISS) as it does here on the ground. Let's break this down a bit. There are two types of motion ...
Trevor_G's user avatar
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8 votes

What makes smartphones tilt-sensitive? Will they retain this ability in zero-gravity conditions?

This is a rare case on the Electronics site where, none of the answers clearly and crisply answered the question! Do cellphones retain the ability to detect tilt in zero-gravity conditions? The ...
Fattie's user avatar
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8 votes

A few questions on PIRs and other motion detectors

PIR sensors have quite a few advantages: they’re very cheap they use very little power (since they’re passive) – very important for battery powered/wireless sensors. We’re talking microwatts here. ...
jcaron's user avatar
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7 votes
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Can failure of an old electrolytic capacitor be precipitated by motion?

It's very unlikely that an electrolytic capacitor failed as result of being moved. They generally either degrade gradually as the electrolyte dries out (greatly accelerated by high temperature) or ...
Spehro 'speff' Pefhany's user avatar
5 votes
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PIR sensor not triggering P2N2222

Your problem is that the transistor is on the high side, and you're only giving it 3.3V on the base. Since your base-emitter junction must have approximately 600mV across it in order for current to ...
Hearth's user avatar
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5 votes

Read Quadrature encoders over I2C bus

The common mistake is to assume quadrature decoding needs some form of edge detection and counting the edges. It doesn't. You simply need to sample both states twice as often as an edge may occur. → ...
Janka's user avatar
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5 votes
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Read Quadrature encoders over I2C bus

However, I don't have a microcontroller on the remote PCB. So put one there! It is exactly for this type of application where tiny micro controllers are great. There are lots of 8 pin chips which are ...
Oldfart's user avatar
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4 votes

Stepper Motor acceleration profiles for short runs

You always need a deceleration ramp, or you'll incur a jerk and/or overshoot the target. My company uses acceleration and deceleration times, as in the time it takes to get from 0% to 100%. This is ...
Chuck's user avatar
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4 votes

A few questions on PIRs and other motion detectors

VHF or UHF signals in a quiet channel using a splitter on one of the 2 ports can measure reflected signals off walls and detect reflections up to 10 or more wavelengths by using a Schottky diode and ...
D.A.S.'s user avatar
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3 votes

Can I electronically trigger a PIR motion sensor?

A small quantity of warm but not boiling water will often trigger a PIR (safety in mind) or on a cold day just tap water - just throw it into the air near the sensor. Alternatively a few drops of cold ...
Fred's user avatar
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3 votes

A few questions on PIRs and other motion detectors

Motion sensing is pretty broad. Doppler radar can detect motion. Anything that detects changes in light will also detect motion (which is pretty much just the same concept as a PIR sensor but using ...
DKNguyen's user avatar
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3 votes

A few questions on PIRs and other motion detectors

Motion sensing can be done with cameras. OpenV and other technologies can detect motion from image section analysis over time instead of heat changes over sensor sections. This is unlikely to be ...
Passerby's user avatar
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3 votes

A few questions on PIRs and other motion detectors

No other answers yet address #3 - the three LEDs. What you are probably looking at is a dual technology motion detector, not a PIR. These contain a PIR, which only when triggered (to save energy) ...
abligh's user avatar
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3 votes
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Is Modbus suitable for motion control positioning?

TCP/IP based systems are not real-time systems. There are no guarantees that packets will arrive in a timely manner, or at all. Therefore it is considered unsuitable for real-time control. As for the ...
Lundin's user avatar
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3 votes

Is Modbus suitable for motion control positioning?

Have a look at the CiA 402 specification. It's a widely adopted (at least in Europe) standard for drives and motion control. We've implemented several CANopen and EtherCAT servo drives using the CiA ...
Velvet's user avatar
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2 votes
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PIR sensor led strip with N channel mosftet

Don't use the 2N2222 to drive the load as it's an 800 mA device driving an 800 mA load. Note that the data sheet ratings actually cover what they can guarantee from every single 2N2222 transistor they ...
TonyM's user avatar
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2 votes
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ARM Cortex-R for motion control application

Cortex-R series are used in pretty much industrial-specific applications such as DSP core fore automotive, digital cam, or SSD controllers. Because of the nature of industry world there is not much ...
Bumsik Kim's user avatar
2 votes
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To Fail-Safe or not Fail-Safe on RS485/422 Transceiver

SHort Answer: You must add the differential terminators (120//120) for Rx and Tx combined OR use the Fig 6 sol'n for the MAX3095. RN7 is redundant. In the static case with uC outputs defined as ...
D.A.S.'s user avatar
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2 votes

Is there any way to obtain linear or angular distance proportional to a voltage signal?

"Servo" is exactly what you're looking for. It's a generic term for mechanical movement that's proportional to an electronic signal. Digital servos typically use PWM control signals, but old-fashioned ...
Dave Tweed's user avatar
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2 votes
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How to enable the DMP of the MPU9250?

Under Advanced Hardware Features on Page 54 of the Register Map document it says, "For further details please see the Application Note 'Programming Sequence for DMP Hardware Functions."' In that app ...
DKNguyen's user avatar
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2 votes
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Motion sensor to detect birds and small animals but ignore humans

Search Mouser for PIR sensors and look at the datasheets for what is available in terms of analog/digital outputs, detection ranges, and field of view. Some ideas you can try out: Differential FOV PIR:...
DKNguyen's user avatar
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2 votes
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Partial Differential Equations to Describe Electric Current

I don't know if they're "equivalent" to the Navier-Stokes equations, because they describe an essentially 1-dimensional system while Navier-Stokes describe a 3-dimensional system, but we ...
The Photon's user avatar
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2 votes

A few questions on PIRs and other motion detectors

@jcaron's answer mentions Ultrasonic motion detectors and I'll expand on this. They are easy and can be cheap but can see around corners and outside the room; they are not limited to line-of-sight ...
uhoh's user avatar
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2 votes
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How can I limit the active working angle on a microwave motion sensor?

Oh my! What an interesting design that PCB is! It looks to me as if the copper ring on the bottom of the board is actually used as a resonator, which, together with the FET on top of the middle of it ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar
2 votes
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What type of transmitter to use for a magic wand?

The cost-efficient, and hobbyist-achievable, way to do that is probably not to put a transmitter, motion sensor, and detection logic in a tiny wand. Instead, mount a small LED with a small ...
Marcus Müller's user avatar

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