Lights on...

First project after a couple of months without doing anything on the robot : build additional lighting on the cam.

• Light source:

6 ultra bright LED (26000 MCD), approx. 20 mA, 5V.

• Switch:

I made a little PCB to manage the power. It's got 2 logical inputs that could be connected to the BS2 and to the PC104 printer port. Both inputs can trigger one 2N2222 transistor, through pull down resistors and diodes. It works correctly but the collector-emitter voltage is only 4.5V to 4.55V. Consequence : to have an efficient light production, the current in the LEDs will be higher than expected. Bad news for autonomy.

Additional lighting : Switch PCB and LEDs PCB

As you can see on the photo, the lighting assembly is not mounted on the cam chassis yet, but a first simple test demonstrated the improvement of vision processing. To be confirmed on the robot.

I am also thinking about completing this device with 2 fixed "headlights", maybe mixing regular and IR LEDs that could improve edge detection in poor lighting conditions.