Light Sensing

The following is a method to allow day and night detection using Infrared/Visible light sensitive phototransistors and a simple LM339 voltage comparator circuit. A phototransistor is mounted between the rails so that it is covered by the train as it passes. A system widely used in model railroading. For daytime operation the room lights would be on and when the train blocks this light the train is detected. However when the room lights are dimmed or turned off for night operation, under normal conditions the phototransistor would go dark and act as if it was covered by a train and give a false detection.

Colour sensor is an interesting project for hobbyists. The cir- cuit can sense eight colours, i.e. blue, green and red (primary colours); magenta, yellow and cyan (secondary colours); and black and white. The circuit is based on the fundamentals of optics and digital electronics. The object whose colour is required to be detected should be placed in front of the system. The light rays reflected from the object will fall on the three convex lenses which are fixed in front of the three LDRs.

I tried to design a timer that would do everything it needed to do but with the smallest number of pieces and simplest mode of operation. It only needs the PIC, a four digit LED display, one other IC, a resistor network, one pushbutton switch and a capacitor. It can run on batteries if you use a solid state relay to turn the exposure light on and off thereby adding a minimum of parts to make a fully functional darkroom timer. A simple regulator would add only a few extra parts and allow the use of a "wall-wart" for power.

A number of people have been unable to find the transformer needed for the Black Light project, so I looked around to see if I could find a fluorescent lamp driver that does not require any special components. I finally found one in Electronics Now. Here it is. It uses a normal 120 to 6V stepdown transformer in reverse to step 12V to about 350V to drive a lamp without the need to warm the filaments.

This is one of my stroboscope designs. Usually many stoboscope circuit work directly from mains voltage, but this circuit uses 12V DC intead od mains AC. This is very good idea if you don't want to mess with direct mains voltage connected circuit or you want to run the stroboscope from batteries. The circuit has some special functions compared to other stroboscope circuits found electronics books. First the there is a switch for selecting the flash power: with C3 you can get very fast flash rates (over 50 Hz), C2 is most suitable for normal operation and using C1 directly you get very bright single flashes.

This device allows one or more lamps to illuminate at sunset and turn off at dawn. Q1 and Q2 form a trigger device for the SCR, providing short pulses at 100Hz frequency. Pulse duration is set by R2 and C1. When the light hits R1, the photo resistor assumes a very low resistance value, almost shorting C1 and preventing circuit operation. When R1 is in the dark, its resistance value becomes very high thus enabling circuit operation.

In some applications, you need to detect light signals in the presence of background light whose intensity can change by orders of magnitude. The circuit in Figure 1 uses an integrated photodiode/amplifier (OPT201) in conjunction with an integrator that drives two linear optocouplers (TIL300). The optocouplers subtract the background-light-generated current from the current the optical sensor produces. C2 integrates any dc signal present at the output of IC1. The output of IC2 drives two optocouplers, IC3 and IC4.

The first circuit energizes the relay when the light rises above the preset level. The second circuit energizes the relay when the light falls below the preset level. The two circuits are practically identical. The only difference between them is the polarity of the transistor. The value of the LDR is not critical. The important thing is the voltage on pins 5 & 6. Any value LDR should work satisfactorily. But you may need to change the value of R1 - to achieve the desired range of adjustment.

A project required building a synchronous-demodulator circuit to track a line drawn on paper. The beauty of the synchronous-modulator/demodulator approach is its inherent noise rejection. The method rejects nearly all out-of-band noise, whether from internal drift or external illumination. This rejection is a boon in optical tracking, where the return signal is inevitably buried in 120-Hz ambient light, amplifier offsets, and temperature drifts. The circuit in Figure 1 is inexpensive, and it operates from 5V dc. The circuit scans eight LED/sensor pairs every 22 msec and stores the result in eight sample/hold (S/H) capacitors for interrogation by a µP-driven ADC. The purpose of the circuit is to determine which sensor is above the line.

None of the parts are critical and easy available. The potmeter adjust the trigger 'on' level. The diode in the diagram shows to be 1N914. This is ok if you have a light-duty relay, also the 1N914 is a signal diode so actually does not qualify. Use a 1N4001 (or better) instead. A couple of substitutes for the 2N2222 transistor are: NTE123A, ECG123A, PN100, etc.

This circuit is designed to detect the narrow 1uS pulses produced by the above amplifier circuit. The clean logic type pulses produced by the discriminator are then sent to a frequency to voltage converter. The circuit is designed to process a pulse frequency of 10KHz that is frequency modulated by voice audio signals. The circuit is described in more detail in the receiver circuit section of my Handbook of Optical Through the Air Communications.

This circuit uses a unique cascode amplifier circuit to convert the current from a PIN photo diode to a current without any feedback network. It is very stable and very sensitive. The circuit shown has the potential for a conversion factor of 10 volts per microwatt at 900nm. I included a simple JFET post-amplifier with a gain of about 20.

This circuit turns on a LED indictor light whenever DC current flows into a 12v lamp.

This circuit uses a small 2.5mm square photo diode in conjunction with a 100mH coil to detect the short light flashes from a xenon lamp. The coil makes the circuit immune to normal room lights. Its 10mv sensitivity can detect light flashes from a range of over 100 feet. Reflections from a room’s walls and ceiling is usually enough to trigger the circuit. The entire circuit draws only 3 Microamps from a 6 to 9 volt battery.

The circuit uses a very inexpensive C-MOS IC that is connected to a small photodiode. Using a unique inductive feedback network, the circuit provides high sensitivity under high ambient light conditions. It is a great circuit when you want to extend the range of an optical remote control transmitter.

This circuit is designed for detecting infrared light modulated at around 40KHz. It’s feedback scheme cancels much of the DC component from ambient light. It’s conversion factor is about 100 millivolts per microwatt of 900nm light.

I designed this test the concept of using light techniques to send identification data instead of RF. A more detailed discussion on this scheme can be found in the Imagineered new products section.

This line powered xenon flash circuit drives a small camera type flash tube. It has an optical isolator to allow the flash to be safely triggered from some remote device. A flash rate of 2Hz is possible with the circuit.

These circuits were taken from a few application notes on infrared remote control devices. They use a current compensation method to separate the modulated light pulses from ambient light. They appear to have limited bandwidth and may only work at the 30KHz to 50KHz frequencies often used by TV and VCR remotes. I have not yet tested the circuits.

This circuit is yet another design that converts current from a PIN photo diode to a voltage. It has a bandwidth that extends beyond 50MHz.