in reply to Human-visible light levels - Adafruit Breakout board with I2C

This is great, and I even bought a couple so I can include this hardware in my Raspberry Pi work I've been doing. I don't have any comments on the code as of yet... I'll report back here after the units arrive and I've had time to read the datasheet and do some testing.

If you do a fair amount of work on stuff like this, you may be interested in checking out some of my mentioned RPi stuff in my CPAN home page (the RPi::* and WiringPi::API may be the ones of interest).

I do have proper light meters as the purpose for my RPi work started off as a project to automate indoor grow rooms, but this hardware will fit in nicely (I admit I was having so much fun writing this code, that I would randomly just buy different ICs just to get familiar with programming them). There are apps out there for smartphones that are reasonably accurate (at least accurate enough to tell whether your numbers are within a reasonable range). You may want to take a look at some of them.

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Re^2: Human-visible light levels - Adafruit Breakout board with I2C
by anita2R (Scribe) on Feb 14, 2017 at 14:58 UTC
    stevieb

    "There are apps out there for smartphones that are reasonably accurate (at least accurate enough to tell whether your numbers are within a reasonable range)."

    A quick check with an app for my ipad shows that the results from the breakout board are in the right ballpark.
    I need to test over a wider range of light intensities, but now I feel happier that I haven't got it completely wrong!

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[d/l]

      I've found that dealing directly with hardware and reading registers yourself can be tedious and frustrating, especially when it's difficult to find reference points (testing lux is definitely one of these times, as someone across the 'net may have several 1kW bulbs burning, but their bulbs may have x, or y, or z or any number of other spectrum-diffusing things happening).

      I'm glad the recommendation for an app helped. After my units arrive, I'll drum up some code being non-biased, and we can compare some numbers (again though, I'm sure my light source'll be different from yours. However, there's always one that is pretty consistent ;)

      I often write C against my Arduino that has analog inherent, then translate the C code to something I can provide a Perl API for, so I get results on two separate platforms (for instance, my ADCs/dpots I test against the Arduino, then port to the Rasperry Pi). I'm looking forward to getting these units so I can have someone live-time to compare numbers with and discuss.

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Re^2: Human-visible light levels - Adafruit Breakout board with I2C
by anita2R (Scribe) on Feb 13, 2017 at 14:47 UTC

    Thanks for the suggestion about an app to measure light levels.

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