The Stouffer step wedge I received today (January 23, 2023).

[dkonigs]

Derek, if your densitometer has the ability to PWM its lower LED, you could hack one to measure density relative to a sensor-open measurement by changing PWM until the sensor reads the same as sensor-open, assuming the sensor can average over one or more PWM periods. I think this would give you accurate densities of your gold wedges.

This is certainly an interesting idea to try, though there are a few problems with its practicality:

• The relationship between PWM duty cycle and LED brightness may not be exactly 1:1, so I'd still need a way to measure/calibrate that part. (Which kinda already requires a calibrated sensor.)
• The LED brightness is absolutely not a constant, and varies with on-time and power level in a way that looks like an exponential decay function. I've put a lot of work into minimizing the effect of this, by improving heat dissipation around the LED itself (which makes the curve shallower), and by making the LED on-time a constant for each measurement cycle. However, this also means that I need at least some cooldown period between measurements to keep things consistent.
• Trying to measure by reading a target, then reading an unobstructed light and varying its brightness to match, would take a lot of on/off/cooldown/on/off cycles especially given the resolution I'd need to match numbers so they'd still hold up on a logarithmic scale.

In other words, it may be worth attempting, but has serious limits to its practicality.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

The LED brightness is absolutely not a constant...

Yup.

There are a few approaches:

1. Measure the LED output by measuring a blank (either air or a reference reflective surface) and use this measurement as the LED output. The LED is kept on for as little time as possible - this means the LED is at the same temperature (or close enough to) for the blank measurement and the sample measurement;
2. Measure the LED temperature and make an open loop first order correction for ambient temperature, again keeping measurement time as short as possible.
3. Use closed loop control of the LED brightness. The LED is kept on so the control loop can function. A benefit is that the LED becomes an aid to positioning the sample.

A drawback of the first method is when the system doesn't have mechanical control of the sample. The instrument can, of course, use the operator for mechanical control with messages of "Lower the measuring head with no sample", "Insert the white reference plaque", "Insert the sample."

 

[albada]

I used a simple solution: Keep the LED cool by running little current through it.
I'm driving a typical through-hole indicator-LED at 5 volts through a 6k ohm resistor in series, so the current is under 1 mA. The DA meter sees no evidence of sag at any PWM duty-cycle from 100% down to 1/16 or 1/32. And the DA meter has a resolution of 0.01 stops (not logD), which is plenty sensitive to detect LED-sag.

Mark

 

[MattKing]

Thread title updated - because any reference to "today", "soon", "now" can get confusing over time.

 

[Chuck_P]

Thread title updated - because any reference to "today", "soon", "now" can get confusing over time.

Good idea, thanks.

 

[Chuck_P]

In the interest of accuracy, I realized that my PD Cal 2 from my post #71 was incorrectly calibrated.......the Stouffer step #20 density is 2.88 where I had incorrectly input a density of 2.84..........so, after re-calibrating the PD to that density and reading each step of the Stouffer wedge again the below graph is the result............it's an exact match, basically.