First Choice Sensors Resources?

Technical Electrical
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Every year, when we have some credits left over in first choice, I take a look a the array of sensor offerings. We have even purchased a few. I am excited that they are industry-standard sensors, and appreciate the chance to use them to help students learn how to program industry-standard devices.

However, being Industry standard, they are not as plug-and-play as some of the other sensors we have access to. I am wondering if anyone has any resources they can share to learn how to use these sensors. The programming seems simple as many are analog or digital, but the voltage requirements and compatiblity with other robot systems is a bit confusing for me.

The questions I have after reading the technical docs are…
Do we need level shifters (signal) or boost/buck converters (power) to use them on our robot?
How do we wire them (some have both common and ground connections)
Is there any special setup or programming involved (We got one that was an i2c device years ago, and most seem to have special setup routines)?

These are the devices I am looking at this year…

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2

The first step you should take is to google the part numbers + “datasheet”. This should give you all the basic information you need such as input voltage range and logic levels, as well as communication protocols for any more advanced sensors. From there, get voltage converters as needed to interface with the robot power and control system, and check out the WPILib docs pages on the relevant communication protocol, whether it be something simple like reading an analog or digital sensor, or more complicated like using and I2C or SPI bus.

1 Like
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If you click the "Source(s) Part Number: " link on the page, you’ll get it for most of the stuff on FC.