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Subject: 
Re: Multiplexing 4 touch sensors on an RCX input port
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics.rcx
Date: 
Tue, 9 Sep 2003 15:38:38 GMT
Viewed: 
4005 times
  
In lugnet.robotics.rcx, Mark Bellis wrote:
You can use four touch sensors per input port on the RCX.

The Cybermaster touch sensors have resistors in parallel, and this is how the
Cybermaster knows which implement is attached to the tracked robot.

It uses its sensor input as a temperature sensor reader in order to read the
resistance value on the input, which is different for each switch.

If you use the same method on the RCX (after enabling the temperature sensor in
the advanced control page) you can use four touch sensors like this:
Put resistors of 82k, 56k, 47k and 39k in series with the four switches.

Cut in half some short 9Volt leads and put 12Volt plugs on them.  Then use choc
block (barrier strip) for the resistor assembly, with 1/0.6 bell wire protruding
- shove these wires into the middle of the 12V plug pins.  One wire goes to the
RCX port and one to each switch.

Alternatively use Veroboard for a tidier solution, but I haven't got round to it
yet.

You can determine which of the four (and every combination of 2, 3 or 4 of them)
has been triggered by testing for temperature sensor values.  This is great for
robots with multiple bumpers.

I picked the resistor values to make all combinations line up on the linear part
of the value vs resistance graph (the linear region is in the middle).

Of course you can also put a light sensor in parallel as is done on the soccer
robots.  So now you have 15 sensors on your RCX!!

Happy sensing!

Mark Bellis

LEGO purists use LEGO light bricks as resistors.

I created potentiometer bricks, where the resistance is variable for each brick.
Two stacks of 4 potentiometer bricks can be seen to the left of the RCX.  In
this case each stack puts the switches and resistors in series.  To the left of
the potentiometer brick stack is a 16 key keyboard that has for row touch
sensors and four column touch sensors.  The keyboard requires to RCX input
ports.

The potentiometers in the potentiometer bricks are the rectangular green boxes
hanging off the sides of the resistor stack.  The potentiometers are 10 turn,
10K ohms, so you get a *lot* of resistance control.

The potentiometer brick is a sandwich of 2x2 electrical plates on the top and
bottom, with a regular 2x2 plate in between.  The potentiometer leads are
connected to the top and bottom electrical plates.

The potentiometer bricks can be used to create series, parallel or series
parallel circuits.  In my experience series gives you better resolution in the
analog input range of the RCX.

I'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure that I do not put the sensor ports into
temperature mode.  Instead I used raw touch sensor readings which gives you a
range of values from 0 to 1023, giving us the maximum sensor reading resolution.

Kevin



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Multiplexing 4 touch sensors on an RCX input port
 
(...) I don't think that would work very well, as the lights have a rather low resistance, lower than a pressed touch sensor ((URL) as a purist you can use the cybermaster sensors to multiplex three inputs ((URL) Jürgen Stuber <stuber@loria.fr> (...) (21 years ago, 9-Sep-03, to lugnet.robotics.rcx)

Message is in Reply To:
  Multiplexing 4 touch sensors on an RCX input port
 
You can use four touch sensors per input port on the RCX. The Cybermaster touch sensors have resistors in parallel, and this is how the Cybermaster knows which implement is attached to the tracked robot. It uses its sensor input as a temperature (...) (21 years ago, 5-Sep-03, to lugnet.robotics.rcx)

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