Hello everyone, new to the forums. Just had a quick question about infrared systems. I'm buying my first picaxe kit to get started in robots and I've seen a lot of information about infrared and compatibility issues. My friend and I trying to make a basic laser tag system which is built around picaxe chips and we're just wondering if anyone here knows of a good place to source infrared lasers and sensors which are compatible with picaxe. I'm fairly certain the sensors are quite easy to find but what about the lasers (we've had some difficulty with this aspect of the project). Also how do we check if the laser and sensor are compatible?
Any feedback is appreciated, even if we sound like complete idiots =)
Well firstly you’ll want to
Well firstly you’ll want to get a laser with a nice low output power - you may not be able to see IR but it can still blind you =/
As far as PICAXE compatibility goes you don’t have anything to worry about. Assuming the PICAXE only needs to turn the laser on and off, you can interface the PICAXE to just about any laser that exists.
Once you’ve found a laser you want to use we can help with the specifics of getting it hooked up.
For maximum sensitivity you’ll want to make sure the peak response of the sensor and peak emission of the laser have the same wavelength (something like 940nm).
What part of the world are you in? There are plenty of international stores that sell IR lasers and sensors, but someone may know a place that’s in your country.
Hey thanks for the reply,
Hey thanks for the reply, very useful information considering it’s a key component of what we’re building! We’re in Australia by the way.
Cheers!
Hey tom!I have been wanting
Hey tom!
I have been wanting to make a lasertag system since 2 or 3 years by now, and i’ve got a lot of informations about it. I am not totally sure picaxe is the best way to make one, but still…it can be made. First off, lasertag doesn’t use lasers, but it uses focues IR beams coming from LEDs (lasers can be dangerous, especially if IR). A very popular one among lasertag communities around the world is the tsal6100 by Vishay, but any IR led will do. As for receivers, take a look at the TSOP series by Vishay.
As for compatibility: receivers are made to receive a certain frequency-modulated beam. That means that the IR led that transmits has to be modulated at a certain frequency, matching that of the receiver. The modulation of the beam is done with the pwmout command with the picaxe. Now, there’s a little problem with this: if i well remember that pwmout command does not support too high frequencies such as 56KHz (if i well remember), in that case a 56KHz receiver will not do. I managed to get a 38KHz receiver work correctly.
As for software, i suggest you take a look at the (don’t remember their exact name actually) irin and irout commands, which basically send infrared remote commands, and that’s definetly what you’re looking for.
…and if you’re interested in more in-depth lasertag talks, we could chat about it on msn/skype/whatever. :=)
