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Subject: 
Re: Has anyone figured out how to improve the NXT light sensor?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics.nxt
Date: 
Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:57 GMT
Reply-To: 
Geoffrey Hyde <gdothyde@bigponddotnetdo%AntiSpam%tau>
Viewed: 
13420 times
  
"Philippe Hurbain" <philohome@free.fr> wrote in message
news:JAF8tF.16H@lugnet.com...
Hello Geoffrey,

2.  I was wondering if the light could be piped uisng some sort of
fiber-optic cable method - this presumably would mean shielding the light
LED in some kind of sheath which would considerably narrow it.  I've no
idea
how hot the LED can get during operation, so presumably the sheath would
have to be able to withstand a moderate temperature rise without melting
or
smoking.

First, don't worry about heat - such leds are really cool (thermically
wise)
devices! This one dissipates only about 20 mW...

That's good to hear.

Your fiber optic cable idea is interesting... and it works well!

I'll have to download and check out your program.  It looks great!  I'll
also have to see if I can get the sensor to detect 1x1 plates - I like
working with big challenges in small sizes!  ;-)  It probably should detect
them from above at the very least.

But first there's the slight additional challenge of building the model in
studless so I can get 1 or at the most 2 stacked together - they tend to do
that sometimes in the hopper - in front of the sensor so I can tell if it's
going to successfully measure it or not.

I used the fiber optic cable included for VLL stuff in RIS 2.0 kit
(similar ones
are also available in some ExoForce sets). The fiber is maintained in
front of
the LED and the other end is routed to face the sensor.
See http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/LightBarrier/lb1.jpg and
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/LightBarrier/lb2.jpg

Your BrickShelf gallery has plenty of good building techniques.  ;-)

In order to try this setup, I use it to count soccer balls that are
notoriously
hard to detect because of the black dots on white background. Here is the
assembly http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/LightBarrier/lb3.jpg, and
simple NXT-G program:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/LightBarrier/ballcount.rbt

By the way, is the reddish-pink hue just a camera side-effect, or did that
come about because the light doesn't travel perfectly through the fiber
optic cable?  Or is it because of the orange background of the light sensor
itself?

With a slightly improved program
(http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/LightBarrier/ballcount2.rbt) it
is able
to properly detect and count several nearby balls:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Philo/LightBarrier/lb4.jpg

Of course, if you use this contraption in bright ambient light, you must
shield
it properly!

Yup, I figure it's going to need quite a bit of shielding for it to get
working fairly well.

Many thanks for the contraption, and for some ideas I might be able to use
from your BrickShelf folder.

I'll have to give you a credit line!  Please let me know if I forget!  ;-)


Cheers ...

Geoffrey Hyde



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Has anyone figured out how to improve the NXT light sensor?
 
Hi Geoffrey, (...) Detecting 1x1 plates should not be hard if they pass close to fiber optic end to efficiently block light. (...) I believe it's caused by the blue background I used that somewhat fooled my camera white balance. That said there is a (...) (18 years ago, 18-Dec-06, to lugnet.robotics.nxt)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Has anyone figured out how to improve the NXT light sensor?
 
Hello Geoffrey, (...) First, don't worry about heat - such leds are really cool (thermically wise) devices! This one dissipates only about 20 mW... Your fiber optic cable idea is interesting... and it works well! I used the fiber optic cable (...) (18 years ago, 17-Dec-06, to lugnet.robotics.nxt)

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