Board from optical mouse

TLC

Not sure if it is my imagination, but at one time did Parallax sell the guts from an optical mouse? Working on a project to detect movement and this seems easier than using an accelerometer. I have eviscerated many mice, but would like to find a commercial source.

Thanks in advance,

Todd

vanmunch

DIY Drones use to sell one to as part of an optical flow sensor that has now been replaced with this:
http://store.3drobotics.com/products/px4flow
You might still be able to find that part number used in the original product.

LoopyByteloose

I have seen a robot that used an optical mouse as a rotary decoder instead of the usual optical decode. I don't think that Parallax actually sold the mouse boards you imagine, but there are plenty of cheap mice to be had. And the Propeller OBEX will provide the code to hack the mouse.

It is a good fit. In many ways it is a lot easier and cheaper than building a rotary encoder of high accuracy from scratch. You can use a 3 inch CD disk for a surface that is attached to the wheel or the bigger 5.5 inch if you have the room.

There are sources..


http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Mouse-Circuit-910-002416/dp/B007CWD3IK

http://www.a-power.com/product-27298

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/mouse-pcb-board.html

Martin_H

They did sell one, but it has been retired:

https://classic.parallax.com/Store/Accessories/HumanInterfaceDevices/tabid/822/ProductID/677/List/1/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName

which is too bad because I have one and it's neat and easy to interface to a microcontroller.

LoopyByteloose

I fear you may have been thinking of this..

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/10105

TLC

Thanks for the replies; it's nice to know that I wasn't totally crazy. Unfortunately Parallax doesn't sell it anymore. I would even have temporarily abandoned ship and bought it from SF, but they are EOL also. Doing searches on every referenced part number I'm not even having luck on any semi-equivalent sensor:(

I wanted to use it to monitor the movement of standard fabric cloth. X-Y doesn't matter it is simply the velocity of the cloth.

Anyway, thanks again for the info.

Todd

vanmunch

This is the link to the original blog post that announced it's sale at DIY Drones:
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/adns3080-optical-flow-sensor-now-available-in-the-diydrones-store
The part number is ADNS3080

You might take a look at these:
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/sensors-transducers/optical-sensors-mouse/1966634

Ken Gracey

TLC - yes, we did sell an optical mouse kit. Phil and I worked on this project and I procured the lens and optical sensor assembly from China. It's very difficult to find mouse guts in the USA last time I checked, but really easy in the Shenzhen, CN component markets.

For years I've heard how accelerometers could be used to do some kind of robot location, or mouse positioning as you mentioned. I personally haven't seen this done yet, so I'm interested in where you're headed.

Ken Gracey

LoopyByteloose

@Ken
Yesterday I came across a very interesting use of an optical mouse board of horizontal collision avoidance of a quad-copter flying outdoors in bright daylight. It was a You-Tube video and really a very useful feature if you are flying in an obstacle prone area.

Here is a downward looking video of a flight demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDuq6y9siOE

Here is the horizontal positioning.

And the hacking into a mouse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbS1N--bT0w

http://www.bidouille.org/hack/mousecam

TLC

Thanks Ken, I'll let you know if I make any progress on this.

Todd