VL53L0X Plugin Questions

[TD-er]

Great that it is working

Just a question about the coating...
This is food safe coating?

[ThomasB]

Just a question about the coating...
This is food safe coating?

That's the plan. Haven't purchased anything yet.

- Thomas

[TD-er]

"Hello, I'm looking for lactose-tolerant coating"

Nahh, that won't give any strange looks in the store

[ThomasB]

"It's in isle 3, near the Guernsey goo section."

I found some food safe rated epoxy coating on Amazon. Will try it out.

- Thomas

[TD-er]

Let's hope it doesn't dissolve your sensor, soldering or wiring

What is safe for food doesn't have to be safe for kluges..

[sartam]

Hello. When using this plugin, when the sensor loses the object of measurement, the distance first increases sharply to extreme values, and then shows the actual values. Why can this be and how can the readings be filtered? Firmware number Build: ESP_Easy_mega_20241222_collection_B_ESP32_4M316k Dec 22 2024

Безымянный10.png (58.54 KiB) Viewed 992 times

[TD-er]

Could it be there is some reflection so only slightly tilting the surface then makes it look into another direction?

[sartam]

The sensor "looks" at the ceiling and measures a distance of 180 cm to it. When you bring your hand into the sensor's field of view and then remove your hand, the readings sharply increase to 400 cm or more, then return to normal values.

[sartam]

Безымянный10.png (37.79 KiB) Viewed 977 times

This is very typical. I sit in front of the sensor and move my hand between myself and the sensor. Meanwhile, if I simply change the distance between the surface and the sensor, such an effect is not noticed.

[Ath]

You seem to have the Range set to Normal, meaning the max expected distance is 800 mm (the highest peaks in your graph). For measuring up to 2 meter, Range should be set to Long. This might improve the behavior for the longer distances.

For more accurate measurements you could consider a VL53L1X, as supported by P113 (available in the same ESPEasy build). It has a separate plugin as it is not software-compatible with the VL53L0X.

[sartam]

No. On the chart the numbers are centimeters. And the Range is set to Long.

[ThomasB]

It might be an alias error. Transmitted IR from a ranging cycle can be received *after* another transmit has occurred. When this happens the received distance will be wrong, perhaps about 2X or so. Your hand movements could be interrupting the IR Tx or Rx in such a way it causes this unwanted artifact to occur.

Since 200cm is the max supported by the VL53L0X in the Long Range mode, perhaps you should just ignore the out-of-range values.

- Thomas

[TD-er]

[...]
Since 200cm is the max supported by the VL53L0X in the Long Range mode, perhaps you should just ignore the out-of-range values.
[...]

Sounds like ESPEasy should filter this.