How could a Wheatstone bridge be used to generate a voltage output signal from a single strain gauge?

Question

How could a Wheatstone bridge be used to generate a voltage output signal from a single strain gauge?

Answer 1

You place the strain gauge in one leg of the bridge.

The other 3 resistors in the bridge should match the nominal (unstrained) value of the gauge (i.e. 150 Ohms, 300 Ohms, or whatever it is).

If the bridge is drawn schematically as a diamond, then place the excitation voltage across the '12:00' and '6:00' nodes and read the signal across the '9:00' and '3:00' nodes.  Usually the strain gauge is the bridge element in the upper right (from '12:00' to '3:00').

There will be a narrow range of strain where the output of the bridge is fairly linear.  Over a wider range of change in resistance of the strain gauge the output function is an "S" curve.

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