VL53L1X - big fluctuations

Support Sensors
1

Hi there,

I have a device with 3 VL53L1X sensors. I am using the Pololu library for them with an ESP32.

I placed my device in a warehouse: during day natural light, during night artificial. No walls in front (open space). No cover glass for the sensors.

During daytime the sensors have big fluctuations. Sometimes more than 1m. I don’t know exactly what should I do to reduce it.

Do you think that the offset calibration can help me? If yes, where should I insert it and how to use it?
What else can I do to reduce the errors?

Setup:
Wire.setClock(400000);
...
sensorA.setTimeout(500);
...
Init:
sensorA.setDIstanceMode(VL53L1X::Long);
sensorA.setMeasurmentTimingBuget(33000);
sensorA.startContinuous(15);
sensorA.setROISize(HEIGHT,WIDTH);
2

Hello.

I am sorry to hear you are having trouble with your VL53L1X sensors. I would not expect adjusting the offset calibration to help much with errors like what you are seeing. Instead, you might try some experiments to see if the problematic behavior correlates with more ambient light on the sensor and/or the target since that is probably worsening the signal-to-noise ratio that the VL53L1X is getting. If that is the case, you might consider if you can add some physical shielding around the sensor or target to reduce the interference. You could also try increasing the sensor’s timing budget further to see if that makes a difference.

- Patrick