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Pickleball Scoreboard pt 5-Infrared Triumph

26 January 2019

This one went surprisingly well and I had almost no issues implementing the IR sensor. I should have done this a week ago, as it took me maybe an hour to get it up and running.

I won’t go into detail about the wiring, as it’s largely the same as before. The code was taken from the IR sensor code that came with my Arduino Elegoo Mega kit, and I substituted in the code I’ve previously written. As normal, it’s not the prettiest, but it seems to work. One issue I came upon was that every time the IR sensor received a signal, the LEDs and display turned off very briefly. I don’t know why that’s the case, but I’ll keep this in mind as I fiddle around more with the design. Here’s the link to the Arduino code.

I’m still looking for an IR remote that fits what I want (5 buttons, wrist or arm mountable), but I have the feeling that I’ll have to make that myself. It shouldn’t be too difficult though, as infrared LED’s are pretty common. The issue will be finding one that will work at a far enough range and with enough power. Also, I’ll need to figure out how to create a housing for it that’s light enough to not interfere, but strong enough to not easily break. 3d printing will probably be useful for this, at least in the prototyping phase. I heard a rumor that the 3d printer at my university has been fixed, so I’ll need to check that out. When it gets into production I may need to move to injection molding.