Connecting 3 GP2Y0D810Z0F sensors to 3pi robot

I am trying to connect three GP2Y0D810Z0F sensors to a 3PI mounted on a Zumo with L298 controller. Ideally would like to power the 3 sensors using 3PI GPIO and send output of all three sensors to GPIO. Is that possible and how to do it? I’m new to RPI and electronics so not sure if I need resistors to step from 5V to 3v3.

Hello.

It sounds like you are working with a Raspberry Pi (which is not related to our 3pi robot at all). Those sensors will work with a 3.3V VIN and they typically draw about 5 mA per sensor, so it should be possible to power them using the 3.3V supply pins on the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header. You might notice an increase in performance by placing a large (>10 uF) capacitor between power and ground somewhere near the sensor.

The interface on these sensors (OUT = 0V when there is no target in range and OUT = VIN when a target is detected) is pretty basic and there are a number of resources for using the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi as inputs like that. The GPIO Readme document in the Raspberry Pi’s online documentation might be a good place to start.

-Nathan