an IR localizer

kfurem

I'm building a little cheap and dirty IR localizer so that one machine can locate another using IR codes. The problem seems to be that the IR sensor picks up the signal in a fairly widfe area.(the IR sensor is mounted on a Pan mechanism. So possible solutions could be:

1. Put a black tube over the receiver (could it be this easy?
2. Pan and find the Extents of where it receives---seems like a slow solution.
3. Reduce the output of the transmitter.
4. Find a different receiver

my components are those that come in standard Boe Bot Kit

Just looking for suggestions

Duane Degn

I'd go with #1.

You want to make sure the tube material doesn't transmit or reflect IR.

erco

Duane Degn wrote: »

I'd go with #1.

You want to make sure the tube material doesn't transmit or reflect IR.

Roger that. Paint the inside of the tube with flat or ultra flat black paint.

I also made sensor hoods from black construction paper, but it took 2 layers to be IR-opaque and work properly. IR gets through some of the darndest things quite easily, some things that appear quite opaque to the eye. Visible light and IR are very different animals.

kwinn

The brass tubing available in hobby stores works well for this if you paint it as erco suggested.

kfurem

So I built a little hood from rolled up construction paper, seems to work well. As you can see from the XY plots, I'm getting pretty good repeatability from this set up. The last plot, shows distance vs. Angle--the entire point is to know which edge I should be detecting, seems to be close enough. When I get some time I'll try the copper tubing. Thanks for the help.