Before we can start measuring, we will need to set the instrument resolution to the desired value. This can be done by clicking on the Setup menu in the Instrument taskbar. In the menu, click on the Hardware tab and select 16 bit as the Instrument resolution. Close the Setup menu again and open the oscilloscope.

The oscilloscope is needed to calibrate the Accelerometer. To make sure that the Accelerometer is accurately calibrated, either axis of the Accelerometer must be placed parallel to the earth's surface. Since the Accelerometer has two axes that can be measured, enable the second channel as well by double-clicking on the right side of the window in the oscilloscope. The second channel is now activated.

Turn off the Auto ranging in the channel sensitivity of both channels and set it to 4.000 Volts.

The Accelerometer has an output sensitivity of 167 mV per g acceleration, which means that if you want to display the accelerations directly, this sensitivity has to be corrected by a factor 1 / 0.167 V = 6. This factor must be entered for both channels in the Units gain submenu of the channel menu.

When the Accelerometer is properly positioned (parallel to the earth's surface), the offset can be compensated for. The Cursor function is very useful in this situation. Enable the cursors (either large or small cursors) in the Cursor menu. Now measure the average voltage on channel 1: right-click in the cursor readout window, select Voltmeter measurements and then Mean value. Position one of te cursors at the left hand side of the screen and the other one at the right hand side of the screen. The offset value can now be read from the Oscilloscope cursor readout table. Use this value to correct the offset in the Units offset submenu by entering the negative value, for example, -15.321 Volts for the image below. This has to be done for both the channels.

To enable an easy readout, the idle condition of the Accelerometer should give a flat line on the center of the display. Therefore, the axes both need to be properly aligned. This can be done by adjusting both the software gain and the software offset. Use your mouse to drag the center and the top of the vertical axes to adjust the offset and the gain or enter it directly in the appropriate submenus of each channel menu.

The oscilloscope is now almost set to measure accelerations, but we are measuring g's directly, so we will need to adjust the Units of measure. Choose User defined ... and enter g to denote that we're measuring accelerations.

The TiePie engineering software is now ready to measure both the tilt and the accelerations that the Accelerometer is experiencing.

The Accelerometer can also be calibrated differently to allow acceleration / tilt measurements from a different angle. However, if not the earth's surface is used to calibrate the Accelerometer, but a different surface, this might influence the measurable range.

The following table is a quick summary of the setup that is needed to start measuring with the Accelerometer:

• Set the Instrument resolution to 16 bit
• Enable the second channel
• Turn off Auto ranging
• Set the Units gain
• Determine the Units offset
• Input the Units offset
• Adjust the Software gain
• Adjust the Software offset
• Set the Units of measure