I'm not super familiar with strain gauges, but I've seen some discussions about designing them as part of a PCB and it seems like 2 concerns come up: resistivit

I'm not super familiar with strain gauges, but I've seen some discussions about designing them as part of a PCB and it seems like 2 concerns come up: resistivity and, to a lesser extent, trace width. It sounds like strain gauges may use a metal with higher resistivity than copper, which means you get a higher overall resistance (the ones I'm using are 350 ohm) which is better for stable measurements. With copper traces, and especially if you're using the cheap PCB manufacturing services with large minimum trace widths, I think you'd end up with maybe single-digit ohms, which would use more power and generate more heat (which would then also change the resistance). But if it could be made to work it would be amazing and simplify the design a lot! So I'll have to keep an eye out in case anyone does more experimentation in that space.