Intellecta Technologies Pty Ltd

for PICAXE education, Roland CAM, Techsoft CAD, Intellecta control, Atmel, Arm and Microchip education

Sensor Icon View

The sensor icon allows probes and sensors to be connected to the interface panel.

The sensor is an example of an analog device that can give out any numerical value that corresponds to the variable being measured.

The icon has one output stub on the right side of the icon. The default image is a meter scale but other images can be chosen.

Sensor Properties

The property box for the sensor selects the physical channel where the probe is connected to the interface, whether the probe is simulated and the Icon name.

Note: The slider defines a simulated sensor in the form of a slider bar. This can be dragged to change the output of the sensor from 0 to 5.0V

Sensor Placement

The sensor can be placed from the Tool bar at the top of the Windows screen or from the Place>Sensors item.

In this case, other sensors will be shown which correspond to other probes that have been created. These other probes have been calibrated so they produce real data from the output stub rather than the 0 to 5V generic output.

The stop watch sensor is a sensor that measures various properties of a digital input and is ideally suited to interpreting data from light gates in Physics experiments.

It is useful to ensure that the name of the new sensor makes some connection with its measurement variable or sensor type.

Note that the basic sensor or voltage sensor produces a value from 0 to 5V.This is then converted in its analog representation by special circuits in the interface. The analog value from 0 to 5V is then converted into a digital representation.

Example 1 - Display voltage sensor on data logger

A good starting point is using the voltage sensor to plot some data on a data logger screen.

The following figure shows the connection of the Voltage sensor to the viewer icon and the data logger. The data logger property defines the sample rate onto the graph as well as the maximum and minimum values of the axes.

The data is also placed on the Windows Clipboard for pasting into applications. The transfer is automatic once the running of the strategy is finished.

Example 2 - Using the voltage sensor to control motor speed

The voltage sensor provides an easy way to control the speed of a motor because it provides a smooth 0 to 5V signal.

However, this must pass through an amplifier since the motor speed input must be between 0 and 100.

The strategy feeds the Voltage sensor into the Amplifier that is set to have a multiplier of 20. The motor direction control ( top stub) is connected to a generator that produces a forward and reverse value.

Note that several viewers are used to show the values at various points along the links.