How do we Test our Beacon and Sensor

[Lead Tyrannosau]

You can test your IR beacon by looking at it through the viewing screen of a digital camera. The beacon will show up as white light. You may have to block or turn off the visible light to see it.

[starfyter2]

We are also having problems testing our beacons. I also had the idea to try using a camcorder on night vision mode and a night vision monocular to see the IR light emitted from the beacon, but no luck. Our team was a bit confused from the earlier discussion about how the wiring diagram may have had a bad pinout for the FET. Our IR beacons are wired like shown in the wiring diagram in this document http://kevin.org/frc/Infrared_System_rev012704.pdf.

We tried to power these for testing with a power supply in the lab. We put ground to black (GND) and white (-) pins on the 3-pin connector, and aprox. 6 volts to the red (+) pin. Does this sound like it should work to anyone else? It looks as though we should eventually be connecting the beacons to the EDU RC pwm outputs? Is this true?

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by starfyter2

We are also having problems testing our beacons. I also had the idea to try using a camcorder on night vision mode and a night vision monocular to see the IR light emitted from the beacon, but no luck. Our team was a bit confused from the earlier discussion about how the wiring diagram may have had a bad pinout for the FET. Our IR beacons are wired like shown in the wiring diagram in this document http://kevin.org/frc/Infrared_System_rev012704.pdf.

We tried to power these for testing with a power supply in the lab. We put ground to black (GND) and white (-) pins on the 3-pin connector, and aprox. 6 volts to the red (+) pin. Does this sound like it should work to anyone else? It looks as though we should eventually be connecting the beacons to the EDU RC pwm outputs? Is this true?

Tie the white lead to the red (not black) lead and try it. This should be done with a +5 volt supply. Also, why aren't you just using the EDU-RC for this?

-Kevin

[starfyter2]

Originally Posted by Kevin Watson

Tie the white lead to the red (not black) lead and try it. This should be done with a +5 volt supply. Also, why aren't you just using the EDU-RC for this?

-Kevin

Thanks Kevin. So if I tie +5V to White and Red and ground to Black then the board should work? Do you have a suggestion on how test that our IR Beacons are working? Unfortunately, our EDU-RC is locked away in a room for the weekend - so we had to get creative in order to continue working.

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by starfyter2

Thanks Kevin. So if I tie +5V to White and Red and ground to Black then the board should work? Do you have a suggestion on how test that our IR Beacons are working? Unfortunately, our EDU-RC is locked away in a room for the weekend - so we had to get creative in order to continue working.

Yes, this should turn all four LEDs on. While on, you can then use your digital camera to see the LEDs. You'll need to hook it up to the EDU-RC to generate the beacon waveforms.

-Kevin