Does anyone know of a source that will sell in lots of 4?
A while back I looked for optical mouse sensors in low quantities. I had
no luck in obtaining any. Post back if you do find a source; I would be
very interested.
- --
Brendan Gillatt | GPG Key: 0xBF6A0D94
brendan {a} brendangillatt (dot) co (dot) uk
http://www.brendangillatt.co.uk
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Else just contact Avago Technologiers directly, explain what the chips are
for and I am almost 100% sure they'll be happy to send you samples (for
free or nominal cost).
Good luck!
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reallyneedtoknow@localhost wrote:
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I emailed Sparkfun with a suggestion that they stock the chip. They
were very positive but we shall see. If you have some supplier of
hobbyists like Sparkfun in the UK, then perhaps you could try to get
them to stock the chips and lenses.
Meantime I suppose that I will try Avago directly for samples. They
can only say "No".
> I thought of that- eBay and such. The problem is finding the lenses
> in small quantities- they seem to have minimum orders of 2000 and up!
> I emailed Sparkfun with a suggestion that they stock the chip. They
> were very positive but we shall see. If you have some supplier of
> hobbyists like Sparkfun in the UK, then perhaps you could try to get
> them to stock the chips and lenses.
> Meantime I suppose that I will try Avago directly for samples. They
> can only say "No".
I think you are right. If anyone should carry it, it's Sparkfun. These
guys are awesome and this unusual stuff is right up their alley. And lens
are pretty important, too, and it is a separate part. Well, unless you are
trying to build the exact same thing - a laser optical mouse (which I
doubt), you are probably going to need another lens anyway but I guess you
should have the stock one to at least be able to check if the chip is
working at all.
Will your application not tolerate the lower resolution of a regular LED
optical mouse sensor? That's the type everyone has a dozen of in their
junk drawer :)
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The other idea was to use it instead of a quadrature decoder on a
rotating surface, such as a wheel. If you mount it at right angles to
the direction of rotation, you should only get a reading in either the
x or y direction. You would be able to get distance and direction and
speed from it. I wanted the '9500 because it is the fastest thing out
there. You could measure faster rotation. It would be great for
measuring angles.
I bought a laser mouse with a lesser chip in it but haven't hacked it
yet- Holidays you know.
Let me know if you manage to source them and I will do likewise.
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reallyneedtoknow@localhost wrote:
> I want to build a general purpose measuring device. My first use is
> to measure the travel of a linear actuator, such as one would have on
> a satellite dish. I have not acquired one yet, but I imagine that the
> shaft is shiny, and an LED optical mouse sensor will probably not
> track on that glossy surface. But I suppose that I am designing from
> ignorance here! I will get a hold of an actuator in the New Year and
> see if LED wil do.
> The other idea was to use it instead of a quadrature decoder on a
> rotating surface, such as a wheel. If you mount it at right angles to
> the direction of rotation, you should only get a reading in either the
> x or y direction. You would be able to get distance and direction and
> speed from it. I wanted the '9500 because it is the fastest thing out
> there. You could measure faster rotation. It would be great for
> measuring angles.
> I bought a laser mouse with a lesser chip in it but haven't hacked it
> yet- Holidays you know.
> Let me know if you manage to source them and I will do likewise.
I don't want to sound overly confident. I've actually never had to source
the chips. I have attempted to prototype a very similar application -
measuring the travel distance of a small CNC router's gantry using the LED
optical mouse but did give up before getting any results, really - RSF
Elektronik makes very nice optical linear encoders that are abundant on
eBay and more precise (1 um) so getting a ready-made encoder looked like a
better choice for me.
As far as using laser chip to measure against a chromed cylinder shaft - I
would still test the mouse that you already have first to see if it works
reliably. They say it works on shiny surfaces but you may encounter some
slippages that are fine for moving a cursor on a screen yet would kill
your application.
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