Sharp Sensor Mount on Lynxmotion Robotic Arm | RobotShop Community

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Many customers who use the Lynxmotion AL5 series robot arms have asked how they can mount a distance sensor to the end of the arm. Up until now, we never had an optimal solution, so we decided to release an upgrade kit which contains both a new mounting plate as well as a Sharp IR distance sensor. T

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/blog/show/sharp-sensor-mount-on-lynxmotion-robotic-arm
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Hello Brahim
When I purchase my LynxMotion AL5D Robotic Arm last year I also purchased the wrist rotate unit and the Sharp distance sensor. I am about to install these of the AL5D
I have successfully programmed the arm using VB.Net fro the standard servos and will have no problem with the write rotate servo. being new to all of this I don’t know enough to program the SCC-32U to read sensor inputs. I see in the user manual the command string fro all the sensors VA-VH however I am not sure what is returned to VB. Do you have any test code samples fro handling sensor input.
Regards
Doug

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@Doug The Sharp range sensor has an analog interface. You can connect it as analog input on your SSC-32U. Let’s say, you had it connected to pin A.
An instruction of “VA cr” will return a single byte with the 8-bit (binary) value for the voltage on the pin. Then, you will have to convert this binary value to a voltage. For example, your Sharp sensor is providing 3.5VDC on the pin A, an instruction of “VA cr” will return 179.

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Thanks Brahim
I just noticed your reply. I left a similar message on the Robot Shop forum, which you can now forget. I was playing around and get numbers back but I was not sure what I was seeing. If I understand you correctly the voltage returned will based on distance detected. Is there a formula to use in the calculation?

Regards
Doug

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@Doug Livingstone: Please have a look at the forum response for more details. That is a much better place for detailed questions.