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November update!

A project log for Plastic Scanner

Developing a device that can Identify the most common types of plastic

jerzeekJerzeek 12/01/2022 at 19:080 Comments

Hi everyone welcome to a new plastic scanner update!

This is already number 11, November has now come and gone already. This month we have some cool hardware developments, from very basic developments to complex PCB developments.

First up something quite basic, but in my opinion quite useful, a PCB with only the LEDs! This LED test board makes it possible to move the (rather expensive) NIR LEDs from one board to another. It allows for swapping them with red LEDs for debugging and makes it possible to build all these new test setups. So it gives a lot of flexibility and room for testing. It also makes it easier to test different shapes and sizes. The cool thing is that PCBway sponsored this PCB!

Secondly, we have the new PCB made by Markus and Gustav, they wanted to see if they could make a small PCB that has all the components on there for the sensor side, and just an I2C connector to connect to any processing board. This makes the whole project more modular and independent of processor availability. In the future, this is something we would like to sell, an assembled board that is ready to go for projects or is integrated into a handheld scanner. Also, this PCB and the assembly were sponsored by PCBway

And lastly, we have something completely different, a color scanner, so similar to a plastic scanner but then shifted in the spectrum. Instead of 950-1750nm, it is 400 to 800nm. It is based on the AS7341 module, which is an off-the-shelve sensor. This can really help us get an idea of how data flows and what to compensate for, for example, the spectral response of the LED as well as the sensitivity of the sensor.

That is it for this month, thanks for tuning in 😎

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