Ultra sonic range finder

[jcawesome]

http://www.vexrobotics.com/products/acc ... -2155.html
Look at this!!! You could do some cool stuff with this!!!
Any ideas??

Josh

[thegadgetguy]

There's been some discussion on this in the Electronics section:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=543

The main problem is getting them to work underwater - the sound waves can reflect off of the housing, depending on your setup. There could be many practical uses, though.

[Seawolf]

I've been using cheap ultrasonic sensors (made in china) with waterproof transducers for a school project. (see gadgetguy's link)

The tupperware solution in that thread wasn't reliable enough, so I eventually started encasing the sensors in epoxy resin.
My results so far a mixed. Sometimes the sensors work great, and sometimes they just spit out noise. I suspect most of my problems were from surface effects (the sensor was only about 16" underwater and facing forward), but it could also be an artifact of my waterproofing job (things touching the transducer, etc.).

When it works, you can get ranges of better than 30 feet. But you're going to have to do some signal processing if you want the readings to look nice.

In a week or so, once school is over, I'll go back and update the other thread.

Cheers,
-Seawolf