Alpha Labs DC1 gauss meter Hall effect sensor ?

[the great waldo]

Hi All

I have a Alpha Labs DC1 Gauss meter where the sensor is playing tricks. I got in touch with Alpha Labs and they quoted me $175 for sensor and cable + shipping which is fairly ridiculous as a sensor probably doesn't come to much more than $20
+ cable 50 cents. Does anyone know what the hall effect chip they use in this meter is ? or a suitable equvalent.

Cheers

Andrew

[Joe Gwinn]

Hi All

I have a Alpha Labs DC1 Gauss meter where the sensor is playing tricks. I got in touch with Alpha Labs and they quoted me $175 for sensor and cable + shipping which is fairly ridiculous as a sensor probably doesn't come to much more than $20
+ cable 50 cents. Does anyone know what the hall effect chip they use in this meter is ? or a suitable equivalent.

I'd bet that there is a cracked wire in the sensor+cable assembly. It's unlikely that the chip has failed intermittant - they usually fail outright.

[the great waldo]

Hi Joe

Thanks for the info. I'm going too hard wire the chip and see what happens, The sensor wire is on a kapton ribbon cable.

Cheers

Andrew

[David King]

If they list the max +- Gauss in the device's specifications there probably won't be many sensors that match. It would need to be recalibrated with a new sensor.

[Possum]

your battery is weak, replace and all should be fine....

[the great waldo]

Hi Possum

That was the first thing I tried. We have a flat battery charge in the place I work for people to lazy or stupid to check their batteries in the guitars or effects units that don't work. It's amazing how many people tell you the battery is fresh when asked if they tried a new one. My tongue test tells all, and then they start up with the story it was fresh when they bought it (circa 1995) or a friend gave it to them swearing blind it was unused (use by date 2000) Oh well i'll try hard wiring the sensor if I havn't already buggered it up, or finally put together elepros meter which I bought a while ago. Any forumites know how the elepro mark2 worked compared to the Alpha labs box ?
Cheers

Andrew

[Possum]

did you email them direct? When my battery gets a little low the readings become innaccurate, so I change it fairly often. I am on my second cable, the first one just quit working after a couple years, new one has been fine since, though I am careful with the cable more now.

[the great waldo]

Hi Possum

I did email them and they quoted me $175 + shipping on top of which i'll have to reckon with about 30% taxes and duty on top of that, seems a bit stiff for a sensor that probably costs no more than $30. I'll have a go at hard wiring the the sensor to see if it or the cable is at fault. Alpha labs seem to have stopped producing the meter. If it doesn't work it goes into the bin, and have a go at elepros meter which I bought the parts for some time ago.

Cheers

Andrew

[David King]

dc gaussmeter model gm2 additional probes

There are two probes, one 800 Gauss and one 30Kg.

I'm not seeing a lot of linear sensors that meet those requirements. It's probably an older chip that's long out of production. Toss the thing up on ebay "as-is" and put your ElePro together.

[the great waldo]

Hi David

I managed to fix the sensor cable with some fairly brutal work with a scalpel. I think I will mount the hall effect sensor on a circuit board like elepro's much more rugged. I ordered the bits for the elepro meter board that I have and will try that out when the parts arrive and have myself a night out with the money I saved on the new sensor cable!

Cheers

Andrew