How do light sensor(Banner) work?

[roberthan]

Newbie here, I'm wondering how do the light sensor work or any demo programs you can give me.

[deltacoder1020]

take the banner, hook up +5v, GND, and one of the two sensor wires (they are mirrors of each other, one true when the other is false), and plug it into a digital input. play around with it. when the banner sees the line, it will return one value (either 1 or 0), and when it doesn't, it will return the other.

look at the code to map which digital I/O pins are inputs vs. outputs in the default code.

[WCS V]

This may be of some help too: http://www2.usfirst.org/2003comp/Specs/bannersensors.pdf

[seanwitte]

take the banner, hook up +5v, GND, and one of the two sensor wires (they are mirrors of each other, one true when the other is false), and plug it into a digital input. play around with it. when the banner sees the line, it will return one value (either 1 or 0), and when it doesn't, it will return the other. look at the code to map which digital I/O pins are inputs vs. outputs in the default code.

This is incorrect. The Banner sensors need between 10 and 20V power supply so you will have to connect them to a 20 amp breaker. Its ok to power more than one sensor from a single breaker. Connect the BROWN lead from all of the sensors to +12V. For each sensor, connect the BLUE lead to the ground pin on the RC and the WHITE lead to the sig pin. The WHITE lead is the normally closed side, so the RC will see a 0 when the sensor does not see the line and a 1 when it does.

I haven't looked into it, but the sensors in this years kit are different than previous years. I don't know if they can be used to see the line or not.

[deltacoder1020]

my bad :) the sensors should still be able to see the line, though.

[Astronouth7303]

... I haven't looked into it, but the sensors in this years kit are different than previous years. I don't know if they can be used to see the line or not.

They are? they look exactly the same to me. The yellow ones, right?

[Ryan Cumings]

Yeah they are the yellow ones. I used them for the wheel encoders this year. The part number is the same. Just this years does not have the schematic on the side. I also think that the sensing indicator led is a different colour.

[superlou]

And you folks are sure we won't fry our board by jamming 12V at it even though its TTL?

[Phil_Lutz]

You connect to the digital input for the Ground/Signal and 12v for the power.
No problems at all.

5v will not work.

Phil

[deltacoder1020]

You connect to the digital input for the Ground/Signal and 12v for the power.
No problems at all.

5v will not work.

Phil

yeah, I looked at the banner sensors after I posted and noticed the 10-30V input marker.