Overview
The sensor consists of an IR LED and a photo sensor (phototransistor). The light emitted by the IR LED gets reflected by any object placed in front of the sensor and this reflection is detected by the photo sensor (phototransistor). Any white (or lighter) colored surface reflects more than black (or darker) colored surface.
When the reflected light is detected, it produces Digital HIGH (or Binary 1) output on the Sig pin. The on-board LED indicator will also glow. If no reflection is detected or if the object is too far from the sensor, the output on the SIG pin stays at Digital LOW (Binary 0). The on-board LED indicator will be off as well.
The detectable range of this sensor is 4–16 mm. The module incorporates a Rail-to-Rail Operational Amplifier to amplify the output of phototransistor. There is a potentiometer which can be used to adjust the gain of the amplifier, that is, sensitivity of detection.
Get Inspired
Display real-time meeting room availability, synchronized with Google Calendar through Arduino IoT Cloud.
Watching back a slideshow of some of your favorite times of the past years is a great way to reflect on what’s happened and get excited for the future. The Electronic Cats crew wanted to incorporate this concept into a more simplified, interactive form which resulted in the Garrita project. Garrita is a homemade platform that lets an Arduino GIGA R1 WiFi with GIGA Display Shield transform into a highly mobile slideshow thanks to its larger onboard memory capacity and convenient layout. This year, the Electronic Cats were able to take their image shifter concept even further with Michi: an existing project that turns any conductive object into a capacitive touch-sensing controller. Whenever one of Michi’s inputs are toggled, the board sends a signal to the GIGA R1 WiFi that causes the current slide to advance to the next one. In order to go from a locally stored image to something on the Display Shield, users first transform their images into a more suitable format via the LVGL conversion tool. Once downloaded, the resulting files can be easily bundled into a Sketch before they become accessible in the application code. To see more about how the Electronic Cats built Garrita, you can read their write-up here on Hackster.io.
