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Thread: Fiber (Fibre) Optic Eyes

  1. #1

    Fiber (Fibre) Optic Eyes

    So, I got to thinking (which isn't always the best thing) and thought about fiber optic eyes. Imagine the LED and Phototransistor hard mounted to the board with a small fiber optic cable running through the body as a sort of eye wire. Would this be possible or can the light not be carried across a gap (the breech) in a FO cable?

  2. #2
    Insider
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    But why

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    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    To clarify what Ryan said,

    You know how much people hate ribbon cables? Make it 10x worse and now you're talking about fiber optics.

    First, you have to optically couple the emitter LED to a fiber. Then the fiber has to run to the breech, and it can't take any hard turns or kink or it becomes very lossy. Then you'll need to optically couple to a light pipe to get the light across the breech, and another one on the opposite side to collect the light optically coupled to the return fiber. Again you need to avoid any kinks or hard turns (generally any bend with a radius <1" will permanently damage a fiber) and then optically couple it to the detector diode.

    Electrical wires don't seem so bad anymore, do they :P
    Last edited by PBSteve; 08-20-2014 at 01:19 PM.

  4. #4
    We looked at it when we designed the Axe originally (and a prototype gun before that in conjunction with PBX) and rapidly decided it wasn't such a good idea. The plan was to have the emitter and receiver on the board (like the Axe) but not require the eyes to fit up into the gun. Instead there would be fiber optic eye pipe's built into the breech and auto cleaned by the bolt.

    Too many complications and potential issues killed the concept early on.

  5. #5
    why
    images.jpg

    I don't understand how it would be worse than ribbons however

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    Lift Gamma Gain morolen's Avatar
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    My question is, what would be gained for using them?
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    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AberrationPB View Post
    images.jpg

    I don't understand how it would be worse than ribbons however
    You know how ribbons are fragile?

    Make them about 10 times more fragile than ribbons, as ribbons compare to wires, and you're at fiber optic cable.
    Ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. -Alan Watts

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    Insider Ydna's Avatar
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    The fibers inside the optic conduit are super fragile. If you take it apart it looks like a wire made of strands of hair. I think the whole system would have to be enclosed in one unit as to prevent damage, but fitting it in the marker would be tricky.

    Back in my days of automation equipment repairs, companies LOVED to use those for their optical part detectors, but it was always a breaking point. the slightest tug would cause havoc. lol

    it might be possible to make a shaped lightpipe do the job of directing the emitter light, like with a Mini/Axe/Torque eye board. The emitter could probably do it but the detector might not. I wonder...

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    I looked at that in the Shiva, because I was looking for an option to let the breech be released and having the eyes mounted in the body (much like the Matrix). Fiber optics looked cool.

    But most have a bending radius in feet, to cover a 90 degree angle.

    What I ended up deciding on was a 'Light Pipe' - which would have been a bit more than I wanted to spend in prototyping on the Torque. It almost had light pipes up from the grip. That gives you the result you want in a simpler setup. Using a 45 degree angle at the top, with a slightly mirrored surface you can get something that will turn light 90 degrees as needed. It can be quite a few radical shapes and still work.

  10. #10
    Insider PBSteve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ydna
    it might be possible to make a shaped lightpipe do the job of directing the emitter light, like with a Mini/Axe/Torque eye board. The emitter could probably do it but the detector might not. I wonder...
    It could probably be done fairly easily with a ray tracing program. And you could take advantage of the light pipe to make the detector huge.

    Don't know if it'd make up for the losses though.

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