"Kent, Russell" wrote:

Chris Cosman asked:

Oh, how thick of material and what kind?

Paul Lamar responded:

Probably 3/16th mild steel.

Russell Kent interjected:

I don't know if there are non-magnetic mild steels out there, but in
order to avoid them you might want to specify "magnetic mild steel".
Magnetic sensors don't work too well with non-magnetic materials.

They

can be made to work, but they're hard to work with.

Paul Lamar responded:

Wow! Russell I did not know that.

Yes, there are some non-magnetic stainless steels (high nickel content,
I believe).  You could make the plate out of that steel, or even
aluminum, and the inductive sensor could be made to work.  The catch is
the sensor would need very much tighter tolerance to the plate (closer),
and the signal conditioning circuit would need to be much better (higher
gain, more signal-to-noise discrimination).  The whole shebang is a lot
easier to do with plain old magnetic steel.  (I can just imagine some
well-meaning builder trying to save every last gram and building a
carbon fiber plate... :-)

For best weight reduction you really need something like an old manual
transmission flywheel: thick out at the edge and thin throughout the
middle.  Maybe a plasma cut ring of 1/4 inch welded to a sheet of 3/32
with the mounting/indexing holes drilled in it?  Lots of work for a
questionable amount of weight savings...

Russell Kent

 
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