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Subject: 
Re: Color sensor and brick mixer MOC
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Tue, 30 Apr 2002 20:04:07 GMT
Viewed: 
798 times
  
Hi John,

In lugnet.robotics, John Barnes writes:
This is a very well documented piece of work! I like it. And a very masteful
work of miniaturization given that you are using big through hole parts!

;o)

I am also working on a color sensor, although the details are different, the
principle is the same, to illuminate the subject suface with different
wavelengths to attempt to deduce the color.

I have not succeeded in making the device very reliable yet in terms of the
repeatability of readings under different ambient lighting conditions and
worst of all under conditions of varying sample surface angle. The distance
from each LED to the surface makes a very big difference to the amount of
signal that comes back from that LED and thus skews the color estimation.
Have you encountered that problem?
Yes - and I think it is difficult to avoid. That's why my brick sorter
places the brick in a fixed location, relatively shielded of ambient light.
In this controlled environment, the color sensor is very reliable, and
sorting the 6 classical Lego colors + black goes on without a glitch.

As for ambient light, I thought this morning of an (obvious) improvement:
add a step where no Led is lit (but where CDS resistor is active, the dummy
position doesn't work) to measure ambient and substract it from readings.

I have tried using symetrical
arrangements of two red, two green and two blue to try and balance the skew
effect but I can't get a steady reading from a single color surface yet.

For a while I thought of using multichip RGB leds, but they are expensive
and don't deliver much light...


I also note that you have discovered that Lego green is in fact black! Me
too!

Amazing isn't it ??? but true - (almost, as I am able to sort reliably black
from green).

I am trying to find a slightly shorter wavelength green LED but so far
no luck. There are some new blue/green devices available I believe, but I
have only seen them in small smt packages so far.

Tell be if you have any luck that way - the reflected light must span a
narrow wavelength range, since readings in green-yellow and blue are so low !


I see a color sensor as a worthy challenge however and one which will make a
big difference to what can be done with RCX in the future.

My primary goal is to build an M&M sorter ...

Good luck !

Philo
www.philohome.com



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Color sensor and brick mixer MOC
 
(...) I did this modification, very easy (simply connect R4 to pin 1 of IC10 instead of pin 10). The cycle becomes (starting at dummy position) : ambient measure > red > green > blue > dummy. When you substract ambient value to other components, you (...) (23 years ago, 2-May-02, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Color sensor and brick mixer MOC
 
This is a very well documented piece of work! I like it. And a very masteful work of miniaturization given that you are using big through hole parts! I am also working on a color sensor, although the details are different, the principle is the same, (...) (23 years ago, 29-Apr-02, to lugnet.robotics)

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