Need help on an invention!!!!

[dan188188]

Hi all I am in the process of inventing something and I need a sensor that can sense something underneath up to 3ft away and and one sq m wide can somebody please help or point me to a place that may be able to help

 

[XWrench3]

if you want something available anywhere, you could use a motion detector for a driveway light. available at any home improvement store. if size matters, i know they make motion detectors much, much smaller. we used them to sense basketballs going thru a hoop when i worked at Vera-tech. but that was 20 years ago, and i honestly don't recall the mfgr. or model. i can tell you it was about the size of a car ignition key, and it was adjustable for size, distance, and speed.

 

[dan188188]

It needs to sense distance to the sensor and be small enough to fit in a 3x2x2 inch box

 

[XWrench3]

I know its kind of primitive, but the motion detector switch of my driveway light would fit into that size of a box. and it is adjustable for distance. but I wouldn't blame you at all if you held out for something higher tech. i was just looking at Newegg, and they have some on their website. i see your in the UK, what voltage do you need?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Sure there's tons of stuff for that. Heck here's one ready to go that can sense things from 10-80cm away (just shy of 3ft) and would work with an arduino or other microcontroller.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/164

Any intermediate electronics geek could easily build what you're asking to your exact specifications

 

[XWrench3]

I did find a sensor that looks exactly like the ones we used at Vera-Tech. but it costs right around $100.00! which is darn expensive for prototype development. the reason they used such an expensive sensor is because of all of the abuse it had to withstand. hundreds of thousands of impact vibrations, and more than a few direct hits with a basketball from 12 feet away. if memory serves me right they were about $60.00 roughly 20 years ago. but we could send the game out and not have a failure for years. so it was worth it.