Hi MikeMl,
Just dont aim the flashlight at the detector while you expect it to respond to your remote.
Yes! But I would be cutting corners!!! read on as to why....
Hello jpanhalt,
As I mentioned earlier, I have used a TSOP receiver in direct sunlight to detect an object by reflected light. It also works indoors. The IRED is shown. The steel tubing is 1" square. The receiver is behind the plastic.
...
To do reflected light at several feet might be tough.
Yes that's what I am trying to do is detect reflected IR light for several feet... 3 feet max to be exact. So I guess what I am doing is not a beam breaker after all... its simply a sensor which detects reflected light bouncing back from an object like a wall or anything else for that matter. So yes, my set up consists of the sensor and the IR led emitter placed next to each other facing the object(s) they must detect.
But even if its one foot away ... its still not as easy as we might think even though we put the IR receiver behind a dark opaque plastic... here's why:
The beauty of having an IR led next to a sensor that can detect the IR signal bouncing back from an object several feet away is that the detection should always occur within a pre-selected distance weather in sunlight or not.
You see, I have done tests today, and I can detect an object 12 inches away while a flash light is smack on the sensor. What made this possible is just by increasing the amount of current through the IR led. At this point the led is drawing approximately 35 ma. So this works. Yes, I will confirm that 10KLux of DC lighting coming from a flash light straight into the TSOP4838 sensor works!!! The problem is, that when I shut the flash light and the lighting goes down to 400 LUX (which is my regular office lighting...I simply have a fluorescent light above my head)... well, the sensor still detects the object, but now, it detects it as far as 4 feet!!!!!
That's not good!!!! I have to somehow, measure the ambient lighting every minute or so and then, based on the required distance, I have to set the correct current for the IR led so there would be no IR overshoot in respect to the amount of ambient lighting at that instance in time.
My device has to constantly adjust its self according to the amount of sun/ambient lighting available at any given time because I always want that object to be detected at 12" and not 4 feet!!!
Now I used, the above example with a 12" distance. At other times, one may set the maximum detectable distance at 18", 24" 28" or even 3 feet!!
Bof..... I am taking a break now LOL!
I will wait and hear what you guys have to say about this!!!
Thank you for any suggestions !
r