Thread: Line Sensor
View Single Post
  #1   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 13-02-2011, 10:38
SudoSammich SudoSammich is offline
A pretty big deal...
AKA: Corey
FRC #0514 (Entropy)
Team Role: Programmer
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Rookie Year: 2007
Location: Miller Place
Posts: 31
SudoSammich is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: Line Sensor

Okay, there seem to be two points to this if I'm correct, the wiring and what those $@#$@#$@#$@# outputs mean.

Wiring: Blue is power and Brown is ground. They must be plugged into the power distribution block to receive the voltage they need (there may be another way, but this is what we found online, tried, and it worked). The black and white wires are "Light Output" and "Dark Output". You only need one of these for the sensor to really work. The light output makes the sensor read true when it's over light, while the dark does the same when the signal drops below the threshold. As such, you actually only need to run the white OR black wire on a pwm with only the signal wire to get the output you want on the Digital Sidecar.

As for the lights telling you what output you're getting, they're relatively simple if you read the paper that came with the sensors. Green means the sensor is A. receiving power and B. not giving output. If it's over the line, it shouldn't be showing green, since the output is energized. At the same time, your yellow light should turn on. The yellow light means the sensor is reading true, so it should toggle along with the green. The orange light is a little more confusing. When it is on, it means the sensor is receiving at least 2.5x the required signal strength to give a true output. What this really means is that the sensor is more certain that what it is seeing is the correct thing, not just background noise. This should only light up a a certain range from the target, and it's not actually necessary for tracking the line.

Hope this helps!