Sensors

[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by RbtGal1351

Potentiometers: Variable resistor. Think of a volume control knob. Plugs into the Analog input; reads 0-1023 in code. You'll probably want LINEAR taper, not Audio taper, so one "tick" is the same # of degrees rotation. 1 turn, 5 turn and 10 turn are the most common.
USE: Robot has an articulated arm. Mount a pot to the joints to see what angle the arm is at. (Good for autonomous control, or making a mini-arm for the OI to control it by position.) < $4 per.

Unless something changed drastically this year that I am unaware of, analog inputs read from 0 to 255. This corresponds to 1 byte (8 bits) of data input.

Originally Posted by Mike Bortfeldt

Potentiometer:
Bourns 6639 Series - $11
if you are going to connect one to an analog input on the RC, use one with less than 2.5k ohm resistance (1k works well). Used to know the position of our multi-jointed arm in 2005, and our turret angle in 2006.

The RC reference guide recommends using a 10k-ohm linear taper potentiometer on analog inputs. They say to use a range from 250-100k, but I have found that their 10k recommendation is usually very good and provides more than enough resolution.