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Author Topic: IR Detector - Understanding multimeter results  (Read 2606 times)

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Offline oliverj4455Topic starter

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IR Detector - Understanding multimeter results
« on: February 06, 2009, 03:29:24 AM »
Hi there everyone,

I am trying to make some IR sensors (http://www.societyofrobots.com/schematics_infraredemitdet.shtml) but first I need to test the resistance of my IR detector. So I plug it into a multimeter and on all settings I get a 1 returned on the screen i.e. infinite resistance (relative). My multimeter goes up to 2M Ohms. When I shine an IR LED onto the detector the multimeter (still in 2M Ohms setting) jumps down to -0.550 Ohms. Then I move the LED away slowly and the multimeter reading gets closer to zero, continue moving it away and it quickly rises through th positive numbers up to a value of nearly 2. I connected the leads from the multimeter the other way around and just get a continuous reading of 1.

Can anyone help me make sense of this reading ro perhaps suggest a resistor value that I should use?

Thanks,

Oliver

Offline Soeren

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Re: IR Detector - Understanding multimeter results
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2009, 05:24:03 PM »
Hi,

The phototransistor is working in photovoltaic mode, hence the negative reading when you shine a light on it.
A suggested value is allready in the text (10k), but if you just wanna discriminate between absolute dark and light, anything between a few kOhm to a few MOhm should be useable.
Regards,
Søren

A rather fast and fairly heavy robot with quite large wheels needs what? A lot of power?
Please remember...
Engineering is based on numbers - not adjectives

 


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