These are the main problems we encountered during our project :

Problem

Work-Around

   
* One of the two sensors broken

Settling for one direction / Making a new sensor

   
* Unknown short-circuit resulting in weird data from the load cell in the ranges of milliVolts instead of Volts. Circuit points used for signal recognition no longer useable.

New circuit points, using an Op-Amp to amplify the milliVoltages.

   

* Unknown short-circuit resulting in blowing up the DG303 Chip, making any measurements impossible

None, had to wait a week(!) for a new one.

   

* Above short-circuit also had some impact on the ICL7135 chip responsible for the display and offset calibration.

New circuit points used to measure proper signals

   


We also went through different demo-boards and PICs before finding properly functioning ones, all the while trying to figure out what was wrong ...

Creating a floating ground was necessary to be able to measure the proper signals.