Life Lesson -- Datasheets
Since this site is supposed to detail all of my progress while building Tracker I'm taking a little time out to point out something important that I've learned thusfar.
Always read datasheets!
I don't mean skim, scan and then put away. When you are new to a part take the time, sit down and read the sheet. That little lesson cost me 3 hours today.
I was building a test circuit for my Infrared Sensor [http://www.active-robots.com/products/sensors/sharp/gp2y0d340k.pdf]. Everything seemed easy enough, it took me about 5 minutes to hook the five pins to my breadboard plus a LED to make sure it was actually working. I hit the power, ready to celebrate my newly interfaced circuit and I was greeted by a green and glowing LED. When I tried passing my hand in front of the IR sensor I was surprised, the light didn't turn off as I expected.
2 hours later and about ten thousand different minor adjustments to the circuit, and I was about to give up. Exasperated I sat down and looked at the datasheet one last time, hoping that I would see something that I hadn't already seen two dozen times. This time, I did.
Apparantly, there is a rather substantial difference between a 1k Ohm resistor (the one I had been using) and a 1 Ohm resistor.
Food for thought.
posted by Steve Spalding at 7:05 PM
1 Comments:
The time is now 13:30. I started my infrared sensor project at 9:00, I finished wiring it at 9:10. I spent the same amount of time and the same amount of tweeking trying to get the darn light to turn off. God himself allowed me to stumble on your blog and fix the problem. Who the hell uses 1 ohm resisters. I diden't even have one, I had to run 7 or eight 220's in parallel to even get close. BUT IT WORKED!!!
We must be brothers so e-mail me with any other problems you have solved and it will save me a lot of time.
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