Found the diodes, just need to find a way to hook it up correctly, as well as getting a barrel adapter for the breadboard, unless i can MacGyver some old clock/alarm battery holders to deliver 5v.
FWIW you could remove one of the batteries from the holder above and put a shorting bar of some sort in it's place. Then you'd have three 1.5V cells in series vs the four you have now. The ~4.5V should be enough to run your sonar w/o a dropping diode.KirkHamster:
… unless i can MacGyver some old clock/alarm battery holders to deliver 5v.
Mee_n_Mac:
FWIW you could remove one of the batteries from the holder above and put a shorting bar of some sort in it’s place. Then you’d have three 1.5V cells in series vs the four you have now. The ~4.5V should be enough to run your sonar w/o a dropping diode.
I got one of those 4.5V batterier (those twice as wide as the 9V ones) gonna try that now…
Mee_n_Mac:
FWIW you could remove one of the batteries from the holder above and put a shorting bar of some sort in it’s place.
Good thinking that 
So this is basically the design for hooking the diode that i will try.
http://i.imgur.com/U5We6.png
The only question i have, does both GND1 and GND2 have to be hooked up? Or just one of them?
Edit: Bunch of typos in the MSPAINT/Fritzing apps, please disregard!
Edit2: I did not try the 4.5 battery i mentioned yet FYI. I want to try to achieve 5.0V!
KirkHamster:
So this is basically the design for hooking the diode that i will try.Edit: Bunch of typos in the MSPAINT/Fritzing apps, please disregard!
Disregarding … which is a good thing as it’s wrong, very wrong.
Put the diode inline between the + lead of the battery and the + terminal (input) of the sonar. Then the negative wire of the sonar goes as it normally does, to the - terminal of the sonar. If you put the diode in backwards nothing bad will happen, there just wont be any power to the sonar. I’ve modified your diagram.
I understand what you mean ! Thank you !
I shall hook this up within the hour and tell how it goes
I wish i was better at electronics and I am actually reading about it, albeit maybe at a too slow pace!
best wishes
KirkHamster
Also just to clarify,I did google a bit, and the CIRCUIT card that came with SIK was impossible to read. (the ones involving diodes, most other ones are good!)
I don’t ask questions unless i do some research first so i always appreciate when people give me any direction at all Thanks!
Well wow.
I did not try the diode setup, as I lack a proper adapter.
However, I tried with the 4.5V battery, it measured 4.94 even under load of the sensor. (if any)
Then i discovered that the sonar produces the same values (about 110, many times 55 and 64) wether i have any of the ana/pwpins attached or not.
I tried swotching analog/digital inputs on the Arduino as well.
Absolutely nothing else is connected to this Arduino Uno.
Actually, it doesnt even matter if the battery is hooked up to the sonar.
-baffled.
How are you getting data from the sonar to the Arduino ? IIRC you can look at an analog voltage or measure the timing of a pulse. Which are you doing above ? Do you have a shared ground btw the Arduino and the sonar ? The - terminal of the sonar (or it’s 4.5V battery) needs to be connected to Arduino GND.
Mee_n_Mac:
How are you getting data from the sonar to the Arduino ? IIRC you can look at an analog voltage or measure the timing of a pulse. Which are you doing above ?
The only things from the sonar that had any contact wthi the Arduino was an analog pin and a digital pin /i tried both at the same time and separate. In the code i read both.)
It was not, will do that thatMee_n_Mac:
Do you have a shared ground btw the Arduino and the sonar ? The - terminal of the sonar (or it’s 4.5V battery) needs to be connected to Arduino GND.
KirkHamster:
It was not, will do that thatMee_n_Mac:
Do you have a shared ground btw the Arduino and the sonar ? The - terminal of the sonar (or it’s 4.5V battery) needs to be connected to Arduino GND.
I think you’ll find that makes a difference. As a general rule in order for any device A to “talk” to any device B, they must share a common ground. Then, when that still doesn’t work, you can find the next thing that’s not quite right. :shock: :mrgreen:
Now all the readings are 0 from all the sampling… Heh.
KirkHamster:
Now all the readings are 0 from all the sampling… Heh.
Zero readings on the A/D ? Zero pulsewidth ??
First thing to do is verify, on the sonar itself, that there’s ~5V to it’s ground. Then check that the voltage on the Rx pin is also ~5V. It’s supposed to be pulled high by the sonar itself. If it’s low for some reason the sonar stops ranging. You may also want to measure the PW pin (again on the sonar itself) with your voltmeter. If there’s no target then there should be a pulse that’s 37.5 mS wide, every 49 mS. Your voltmeter (reading DC volts) should average this to be something like 4V. Or you may even see the reading bounce about. That’s OK too, both indicate the sonar is active and outputting a pulse that’s not being detected by the Arduino. The idea is to figure out if the problem lies in the sonar or in the Arduino and/or it’s coding or in the wiring between them.
How do you have the sonar setup ? To make sure it’s not seeing the floor or something else, aim it out a window.
This is my current hookup that gives 0.0 readings.
http://i.imgur.com/PErL8.png
Unfortunately my wife is sleeping so i cant go in there and mess around with measuring. Will do that later and post back!
Edit:: The Uno is USB powered.
Edit 2. heres the setup
http://i.imgur.com/a67pv.jpg
so 75cm to the wooden wall at almost exactly 90degrees.
sensor mounted on pan-tilt kit and is 90 degrees on all angles
Here’s some more pictures. Notice that i am using something called “Hoist” - “intelligend metal building toys” which fits very well with the DFrobot basis plate.
I am getting a lot better readings now. Often the reading drops to 0 (of the 5 readings i do per cycle) but the measurments that it get, seems to not be far off. I can almost start to correlate the output with the distances i am trying.
I measured the batterypack output to 4.95V at both the battery and at the sonar connection 5V pin.
I measured the PW pin at 4.84V.
I am getting closer.
Could the 0 readings have to do with bad cabling ?
Checked some cabling, recalibrated some ‘magic constants’ in the code, expanded from 5 to 60 samlings and added 15ms delay instead of 10. This seems to work pretty much now, 98+% or so correct.
Edit: I’ll post the code later in any interest in it.
What did you do to get things working ? Was it cabling ? And what's the 10 (or 15) mS delay doing ? Something to do with sampling the analog voltage ? The sonar only outputs a new value every 49 mS. Samples more often than that should only get you repeats of the most recent cycle's range. There is a way to synchronize things though, so the Arduino triggers the sonar and then you only need take a reading (when it becomes valid).KirkHamster:
Checked some cabling, recalibrated some ‘magic constants’ in the code, expanded from 5 to 60 samlings and added 15ms delay instead of 10. This seems to work pretty much now, 98+% or so correct.Edit: I’ll post the code later in any interest in it.
Ah ok. Will readjust to 50ms then. I still get some identical readings.
The cabling was bad bad. (Worn out cables. Going trough everything with a voltmeter helped.
And increasing the samples helped.
Also i reduced the voltage calculation from the PW pin by 0.84% since i was missing 0.16 on a perfect 5V
I also changed the voltage division formula from 58 to 57.9 which i read was a better number somewhere.
Edit: Typos