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Fire The Freaking Laserpings

Parallax made a drop in replacement for their PING units. Actual drop in replacements with no code changes for "their" PING module. I'm going to see if these play nice with EZb (with a Inline 5V regulator of course) my assumption is they should. Look how tiny they are!

LASER BEAMS!
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#1  
If you are wondering where the laser and sensor are on the LaserPing, it's the chip right above the "VIN" pin with the 2 clear lenses, that's the laser and sensor. TINY!
#3  
Looking forward to your test results. These are a little pricey compared to the sonar ping devices, but not terrible if the reliability is better.

Still looking for EZ-R to release their Lidar EZ-Bit which I think would eliminate the need for any of these except maybe some downward pointing Sharp IR or these devices for fall detection. (I have a sharp IR facing down on the front of my Roli so it doesn't fall down the step into my back den when wandering autonomously).

On the other hand, this is shipping now, so.....

Alan
#4  
Remember too Sonar, IR, and now Laser like this can be used for more than navigation. There are many use cases depending on your needs and design. It's just another sensor option, the use case is up to you.

A "Fall Down" sensor is certainly a good use case, because the vendor for the laser sensor suggests that it is good for sensing materials that the sonar units don't detect as well like soft material like clothes, drapes or carpet.

In my mind lidar, while it is another sensor, it is really a pure navigation sensor so having a LaserPING would never rule out getting the lidar the second it is on order, or pre-order, or pre-pre-order! ;)

I hope to test and post a video soon.
#6  
For very close range, this won't make a good sensor. Example use as a gripper sensor, this would probably not be good for that in a robot hand.

But like the vendor said, for soft material it works well or better than sonar I think. Today I was wearing a waffle long sleeve shirt and I think LaserPING detected me better with less "bounciness" in the readings than the PING sonar and my 3pin PING sonar was also from Parallax also.

I don't have any 3pin sonars from EZ-Robot yet. I just wanted to clarify what I was testing.
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