Re: [NYCR:Microcontrollers] High power IR LED control w/arduino and IR camera

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Alpay Kasal

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Jul 16, 2012, 4:25:12 PM7/16/12
to nycresistormi...@googlegroups.com, Sameer

i'm not sure i understand entirely, but i must say, those led's won't be so visible in daylight. they'll be great indoors during daylight, or in any non-direct sunlight application.


as for the camera.... essentially all ccd and cmos camera sensors are sensitive to IR but almost always have a filter to block ir spectrum. if you open a webcam and remove the blocking filter (a piece of glass or plastic) then your camera can see IR. Some camera's are manufactured in a way that might break your camera when you pop these parts apart though, so you may want to google about your specific webcam and this procedure. I use Point Grey Firefly's for such a purpose, they are great cameras and the manufacturer makes it really easy to mess with inline filters. only catch, these are expensive cameras, but the upside is that they are super solid and the drivers are awesome, lots of access to settings and everythings exposed in the sdk. one more detail to be aware of is that the sensitivity of different ccd and cmos sensors to different parts of light spectrum will vary and usually have some falloff. the closer you are to visible spectrum, the more likely your ir lightsource will be super bright.


if you would also like to block visible light but allow IR through, i like midwest-optics, thats where i get my filters from, great company. if you want to DIY it on the cheap, the plastic inside a floppy disk does a fine job. rip open an old floppy and cut the black plastic to your need. ir will pass through, visible light will be blocked. instant night vision camera.


Alpay Kasal
Engineer
http://Supertou.ch
twitter: @alpaykasal
blog: http://blog.LitStudios.com




On Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:44:51 -0700 (PDT), Sameer <par...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone. I'm very new to EE and circuits so please excuse the stupid questions.

I'm trying to build a high-intensity IR source and test the ability of an IR camera to track that IR source in different environments. Perhaps I'll attach a gimbal that will move the camera around to track the IR LED source. I am thinking I will use these LEDs I found at Adafruit:


and I've been googling around to figure out how to control and power the LEDs and I'm somewhat lost. It appears that some recommend using an LM317 constant-current source so that I can feed the LED with 1A. (I plan on using the Arduino to cycle the LED on/off so I can get maximum brightness at its peak 1A rather than limiting the current to the constant 100 mA that it is rated for.. I'd cycle the LEDs on/off at a rate of 33ms on/33ms off so with a 30fps camera I'd see one frame on/one frame off. My theory is also that cycling it in this way will help me distinguish my signal from ambient/background IR.. particularly in daylight.)

Adafruit's page however suggests the MOSFET:


It appears that the constant-current source would be relatively easy where I would use the arduino to control a transistor which switches my power connected to the INPUT of the LM317 and a resistor across OUTPUT and ADJUST to fix the output current to 1A. However I don't know how I would use the MOSFET to power the LED.

Also, I am wondering about where one can find an IR camera that I can connect to my PC so I can process the IR feed with OpenCV? Ideally I could get a setup which has a filter on it so that it could be specifically tuned to look for the frequency of the IR LED. (940nm)

Any ideas?

Thanks for your help.



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Sameer Parekh

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Jul 16, 2012, 5:29:10 PM7/16/12
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Thanks Alpay-- I was googling around and I found this filter:


so I'm hoping that a bandpass filter like this might be adequate to deal with the sunlight. I'll find out though.

It looks like that filter costs something like $200 new.

So the firefly is not totally outside my budget, but yeah it is expensive. I think I should get the 0.3MP mono:


but the lenses listed under recommended products are all for 1/2" and 2/3" sensors while the sensor for this guy is apparently 1/3" this lens is cheaper and says it is for 1/3" sensors, I imagine I should get that one right?


Also googling suggests the ps3eye, any experience with that one?

Hm, looking at Midwest Optical


They are saying that cameras fall off in their IR response quickly at 880nm so maybe I should be using 850nm LEDs rather than 960nm LEDs.

I think I've figured out how to use the LM317 from this link, so I should be sorted as far as that goes. Looks like I need a 1.3 ohm resistor rated for at least 1.25W.


Thanks!

-s

Paul Strohmeier

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Jul 16, 2012, 5:36:01 PM7/16/12
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I dont have time to walk you through this atm. But:

A) ask your questions in the arduino forum. You will get lotsbof help
B) empty, exposed film makes for a perfect filter. You can probably get an inch of that for free at your local foto store. Some brands of trash bags also work as visible light filters... dont spend 200$ on that... theres lots of tutorials on how to modd. A regular webcam for your purposes on thevinternet

Good luck

P.

Paul Strohmeier

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Jul 16, 2012, 5:47:24 PM7/16/12
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Sry. Confused something. Somebody else was talking about arduinos. Nevermind my first comment then....

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