Hello,
The recent [SI1143 chip offers an interesting possibility to track position in 3D trough IR and visible light sensing.
However the chip is for SMD mount and is so tiny (2 mm x 2 mm) that I’d never dare soldering it.
Maybe Sparkfun could design a breakout board for this baby ?](Si114x UV Index, Gesture, Proximity, and Ambient Light Sensors - Silicon Labs)
No one is interested ?
You can buy the Si1140DK from Digikey (and others) for about $60. Is that good enough for what you want to do?
The si1143 is now about $5.00 . ive soldered a couple, it does fit onto veroboard,the traces are ~ 2mm, just cut each trace into four, 2mm/4 = 0.5mm pitch , the top and bottom pins on the package are NC so it fits nicley on 8 pads over a hole , you can then jump the eight pads to vero traces with .1mm enamled wire.
Beware of touching the package whilst soldering, so far ive bent or cracked three parts , the encapsulation is fully transparent and becomes less tough at ~200C. initially I tried direct soldering wire to the pins one worked, the next cracked. So a very gentle underboard heat, for my next attempt i’ll try solderpaste via pin.
With external led’s the optimum distance achievable for measurment should be up to 1m with tight beam IR, the data sheet quotes 50cm but im optomistic. three leds , because the leds are external they can be operated by any “eye” all leds are driven via open collector .It looks a great chip,