“I used to use these as the primary medium range range finders on my robots. I continue to use them as secondary finders for obstacles and such. They respond quickly and accurately and they don't require much code to drive them.
PROS
- Works well in indoor conditions for robot ranging - longer range than most other IR sensors. Reasonable accuracy.
CONS
- You can get a magnificent Pimoroni laser range finder for pretty much the same dosh.
- My experiments in outdoor conditions are inconclusive, but theory suggests these will not work well outdoors. YMMV
- Soldering for a monkey like me was a problem - the holes are too close to the plastic housing - use maker paste
- The single assymmetric hole makes mounting an utter pain. Something conforming to the traditional sharp IR layout would have made it a no-brainer drop in replacement for many older designs and a lot friendlier for new designs. Having easily snap removable holes at *both* ends would have made the part much more flexible.
- Analog part - that means your core CPU has to do the calculations and not poll the port too frequently.
- calculations - you need the correct formula. Given a 10 bit (i.e. Arduino) resolution ADC and a 5.5V part - the code for the best formula for range in cm I have found is:
rangeInCm = 187754 * pow(raw, -1.51);
yum.”
