Choices in Ultrasonic Rangfinders

Community General Discussions
1

Hello,

I am looking at ordering an ultrasonic sensor for use on robot #2.  I will order it from Solarbotics, since I was pleased with their previous service and they have some other stuff I can combine it with in the order.

There is some really good information on LMR about the SRF05 so I am inclined to go with that since its well documented here.

At the same time, they have some interesting choices like the MaxSonar-EZ0 and MaxSonar-EZ1 along with the SRF02.

I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations (or warnings) in regards to these various ultrasonic range finders?

I will certainly be using it with a PICAXE 28X1 on their very pleasant development board.  Robot #2 will be an indoor bot attempting to roam around without bumping into anything too hard.

 

           Thanks for any suggestions,

 

                           Hal (kingart3)

 

 

2

Thanks for the advice

Thanks Chuck and Bajdi for the advice. 

After looking over the attached PDF the parallax PING looks easier to use than I would have guessed.  Thanks for passing me the info.  I hadn’t even thought to look on Ebay for this stuff, great hint.

3

eBay

I paid about £4/£5 each for some small IR sensors (non ranging), but I have just discovered that I can get SR04’s on ebay for half of what I paid for a non-ranging IR sensor with poor detection range!  I’d written off ultrasonic sensors for a while because the cheapest I could find them was around £15 each…  The thought of looking on eBay never even entered my head!

I know it can be a lottery when it comes to eBay, but for that price I’m not going to quibble.