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SHOCKING: IR Seeker V2 exposed!!!

NXT IRSeeker V2Ever wondered what an IR Seeker V2 looks like on the inside but didn’t have a spare $50 you could just throw away?  Well wonder no more!  I was given a pre-production IR Seeker by HiTechnic to write a RobotC driver for it.  The lens cap on it wasn’t as clear as the production version so they sent me a replacement lens cap and sensor cover.  That meant I had to do some minor brain surgery on the sensor casing.  Armed with a sharp blade I went to work. 

Click me for a bigger versionAfter removing the white plastic cover, the lens cap came off smoothly after a bit of prodding and poking.  As you can see on the picture to the right, there are 5 IR sensors, each pointing in a different direction.  The rounded lens cover ensures that they can all receive an undistorted IR signal.  You can click on the picture for a bigger version which shows a bit more detail.

Click me for a bigger version I wasn’t satisfied with just slipping the new lens cover on and closing it all up.  No, I wanted to see it all.  Slowly I pulled the small printed circuit board (PCB) out of its cover. I was not disappointed when I turned it over.  The big chip roughly in the middle is the brains of the whole thing.  It’s a very powerful processor that does all the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) of the 5 sensor inputs.  It can detect both DC and modulated IR signals at 600 and 1200Hz.  The small silver rectangle next to the main processor seems to be an oscillator or crystal running at 10MHz.  I have no idea what the smaller IC does. You can click on the picture of the PCB to see a larger version.

So there you have it; the inside scoop.  The guts of the IR Seeker spilled all over your monitor in all of their glory.  Maybe not as shocking as the title led you to believe, but pretty cool none the less.

About Xander

Xander Soldaat is a Software Engineer and former Infrastructure Architect. He loves building and programming robots. He recently had the opportunity to turn his robotics hobby into his profession and has started working for Robomatter, the makers of ROBOTC and Robot Virtual Words.