Board Feature Switches

The IR Seeker has three small switches that can control how the board operates.

Version 2:

The latest version update of the sensor uses the following switches:

Spike Mode: DIP Switch 1

DIP Switch 1 ON - This will allow the sensor to work with SPIKE Prime.

DIP Switch 1 OFF - This will allow the sensor to work with EV3 Labview, Arduino or other platforms.

Advanced Mode: DIP Switch 2

If DIP Switch 1 is enabled and DIP Switch 2, the sensor will appear as a Spike Colour Sensor where the reflected light can be used for the direction and the raw red value of the sensor can be used for the signal strength.

If DIP Switch 1 is enabled and DIP Switch 2 is off, the sensor will appear as a Spike Distance Sensor where the distance value is used for the direction. No signal strength is available in this mode outside of the hardware setting (DIP 3).

Hardware Signal Strength: DIP Switch 3

DIP Switch 3 used with DIP Switch 1 will only return a value to the Spike if the ball is within half a field distance. This can be used to build a defender style robot that only attacks when the ball is close to the robot.

The following information relates to Version 1 of our IR seeker. If you are unsure which version you have please contact us at [e-mail] and we can provide the correct firmware files.

Version 1: Spike Prime Distance Sensor Mode

To use the IR Seeker as a Spike Prime distance sensor, move the switches to the following position:

1 - On, 2 - Off - 3 - Off

Advanced Mode - Including EV3 Labview

In order to receive both the ball direction and ball strength from the sensor, the switches should be moved to the following position:

1 - Off, 2 - On, 3 - Off

This position should be used for Arduino development. More information can be found here

Advanced (Arduino)

Defender Mode

In order to use the Spike as a Distance sensor, but with reduced visibility we can move the switches to the following position:

1 - On, 2 - Off, 3 - On

This will operate the same as the standard mode, however the sensor will only report the direction when the ball is within roughly half a field radius (around 50cm).