I have the ZX Gesture sensor working and its working well. I hope to use a number of these on a project but they must be in box with plastic window in front. It does say on XYZ site that you can use IR transmissive plastic. I purchased sheet of ACRY31430 (infrared transmitting acrylic) from ePlastics. Sensors works fine without plastic but when placed behind plastic (butted against sheet) it does not work at all. In the comments section of product one user said ‘Best plastic I tried was Acrylite 9M020 GT from Evonik’ but they seemingly do not sell it anymore. Does anyone know what plastic works and where to buy it?
Thanks, any help is appreciated.
I have done additional tests and it becomes more of a mystery. I wanted to see if it would work with clear plastic (which I would expect it too) but perfectly clear plastic did not work either. In case the plastic was IR reflective I then tried a thin clear piece of glass, that did not work either. I see comments from other users that say they have it behind plastic but it really does not seem to work that way.
I purchased optical grade IR filter (longpass filter) from Edmund Optics and sensor still does not work behind it. Part # is 43-953, it is >90% transmission of IR and only 0.06" thick. It is safe to say sensor will not work behind cover, I’ll also leave comment on product page to warn others.
I have found a solution. I was suspicious that the light from the IR transmitters were going sideways even if butted up against the plastic, I tried a rubber gasket around the receiver but that still did not work. What I had to do is 3D print a thin plastic plate that is the exact size of the sensor board with cutouts for the transmitters and receiver, it is .05 in thick (to match height of transmitters). You lay this plastic plate on board and sandwich it against plastic, it works!
That’s great, thanks for sharing!