Hello everybody, this is my first post on the forum and I hope somebody can help me out.
I found myself in need of a sensor to accurately measure light intensity and was looking for some suggestions on the best way to go about this project.
After looking around the internet for a while I'm assuming that I need to use a photo-diode => op-amp => a-d converter => micro-controller. Does anybody have experience with type of project?
Thanks in advance!
I found myself in need of a sensor to accurately measure light intensity and was looking for some suggestions on the best way to go about this project.
After looking around the internet for a while I'm assuming that I need to use a photo-diode => op-amp => a-d converter => micro-controller. Does anybody have experience with type of project?
Thanks in advance!
If you really want to DIY it, consider using the "Light to Frequency" converters from TAOS, Inc. www.taosinc.com I am pretty sure that Mouser carries them -- all you have to do is measure the period and convert to light values. The "period" has to be cleaned up a little bit -- but the acuracy is surprisingly good. All that your MCU has to do is measure the period.
You can interpret the linear data to logarithmic with a lookup table, or there are some bit-shifting techniques which can be deployed on a PIC, STAMP or AVR...
You can interpret the linear data to logarithmic with a lookup table, or there are some bit-shifting techniques which can be deployed on a PIC, STAMP or AVR...
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