Photo sensor light source

[jwakeman]

Hello,

Our team has the photo sensors mounted underneath the robot and there was some concern that it would be too dark for the sensors to see any light reflecting off the line tape. So we added a little 6V incandescent light bulb to shed some light. Now I am remembering that I read somewhere that the photo sensors have their own infrared light source that they use to detect the line. So the question is will the incandescent light bulb help, hurt or have no effect? As a corollary would the photo sensors work in complete darkness? Would they actually operate best in complete darkness?

Thanks!
Joe