VL53L0X vs HC-SR04 experiment (Part 1) 

+William Hall Thank you! I'm very happy that you enjoyed my videos! Hope next video I will release soon. Stay tuned😉

A side note, transparent and opaque objects to cause a good deal of erroneous data with laser detectors.

Glad to hear it!

Thank you for ideas. The second part will be mostly about how the sensors work with different types of material and in different conditions. Not sure that I will have a chance to experiment with oil, but I will make it with water

@@RoboticsWeekends : I see a lot of people what to see the level in their heating oil tank. my car backup sensor gives an a genera idea, but is not accurate near the top.

Thanks for a comment, you are very observant😉 After installation I've removed protection. I'm pretty sure that after calibration sensor will be more precise. In the second part I plan to dive deeper into API to see what it really can. Stay tuned!

Thank you! I'm glad that my videos are useful for people, and it really inspires me!

Thank you. I'm going to publish the next part soon

Thanks for a comment. I will try to cover this in the second part

Good Job and thanks

Thank you. To see the IR spectrum I used a cheap web camera with removed IR filter and added visible light filter. The visible light filter is made of two pieces of polarised plastic, rotated by 90 degrees, from 3d movie glasses.

I'm afraid that you will get reflected Ray from tube

Hi, thank you! Seeing through glass is one of advantages of VL53L0X ;)

@@RoboticsWeekends How about 1/8" clear plexiglass? If it works through real glass, I would think plex would be okay also. Thanks!

Specs of both sensors are mentioned in the post I created for current video: link.medium.com/jJ0GLwQxI2

I just printed to serial port distance values from both sensors, separated by comma and then copied the result to Google spreadsheet. Also there are free software that can convert comma separated values to graph in real-time. For example ArduinoPlot, arduino-plotter, etc. Check this link for more information: arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/1180/serial-data-plotting-programs

Thanks! Unfortunately I have no time to prepare second part. One thing I can tell for sure it will not be this month 😞

Too bad! Thank you anyway, it really helped me a lot with my project :)

As you can see from my experiment, obstacle angle does not affect measurements critically. So rounded obstacles should be detected fine as well

It's almost sensor's measuring limit in normal mode (which is used in Adafruit library). Sensitivity can depend on color and texture type of the reflected surface.

Sorry can't remember that:( But why are you asking?

In your case I'd recommend you something like TFMini LiDAR

@@RoboticsWeekends thanks for your advice, I'll try to use it 👍🏻

Yes for vl53l1x works the same. For more than one sensor you have to set different i2c addresses for every sensor. It's a bit tricky as far as I know, because you have to set address at every device during boot. You can find the details in documentation. In few words, on boot you have to shut down all the vl53 sensors(there is a special pin), then enable one by one and set addresses for them.

Hi. It depends on what kind of application are you planning. Do you need just to count people passing, or you need to measure distance, or calculate trajectory a person moves, etc? Sensors described in video are simple range sensors - they measure distance to obstacle. If you need to detect human bodies, it would be better to use IR sensors, because some clothes (fur or knitted wear) can absorb ultrasonic wave. PIR sensor do not measure distance, but can detect only moving bodies - if a person stands still sensor won't detect anything. Most of sensors can cover range 160 cm and have ~35 degree coverage

Good question. Let me check tomorrow.

OK. I'm afraid that is is not possible to change fov easily:( With additional optics I had no any luck to get stable range data. I'd recommend you to check out TfMini Lidar for your purpose.

Let me check it

I tried to measure a distance for ~3mm string. I wasn't be able to get stable information for distances greater than 25-30cm

Yes, this is one of its advantages. Measuring beam is emitted in IR range

You might want to experiment. My experience with IR illumination for cameras indicates that glass can reflect a significant amount of IR light, possibly confounding measurements. I'm also wondering if the beam can be focused with a lens for applications that require distance measurement to a more precise point. If we could have sub-mm measures, I might use it to detect stepper motor slippage in 3D printing applications to avoid wasted time and filament. Anyway, thanks for posting this. It's a great reference.

@@RoboticsWeekends I doubt IR can pass through glass. Glass are well-known for IR reflectance.

That's a good question indeed

Yep, you're right. Thanks:)

@@RoboticsWeekends you're welcome, thanks for uploading a useful comparison!

Yeah :(