Today I realize it should have been a blog entry; It is just my personal trip, but it is not a robot or a walkthrough, so it must belong in my blog :)
Yesterday I went on about how I wanted to use it to detect colors AND distance. Today I had the chance to do a little testing..
It turns out that the (quite obvious fact) brightness of the source has ENORMOUS amounts to say regarding the distance in which we can measure anything.
The LED's on the picture are of the "super bright" kind - I pay about USD" a piece in my local.. I tried with some more ordinary ones, and where I could measure up to 25CM with a single SuperBright, the next step down would hardly work at all untill 0-1 CM!!
Plain ordinary little LED's will not do at all. I have seen a new LED-type that would give enormous amounts of light at 12V/5W, but that also costed enormous amounts of money (USD 21 for 1), so that would not make this project very smart..
Anyway - I have realized that the RED LED's are far the best, as I am trying to demonstrate on the video (though it was hard to hold the mobile with one hand etc - but with both hands available, looking at digits etc, it is crystal; The red LED is the way to go, I will have to get some more of them :)
You might consider getting Superbright IR LEDs - they will probably work even better than red… I don’t know the preferred wavelength of the LDR is … but I have experienced in the past that light senstive electronics are “usually” more sensitive with longer wavelengths - IR being the best.
That’s pretty cool Frits!. I like the “geiger counter” sound effect. Now I’m off to figure out how to get the same sound effect with my Ping))) ultrasonic sensor. I’ve been looking into sound (like you suggested in your email) and then you dangle this idea in front of my mind.
If I don’t get any sleep tonight, it’s YOUR fault. I hope that you are happy.
