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Your cart is empty.Infrared (IR) break-beam sensors are a simple way to detect motion. They work by having an emitter side that sends out a beam of human-invisible IR light, then a receiver across the way which is sensitive to that same light. When something passes between the two, and its not transparent to IR, then the 'beam is broken' and the receiver will let you know. Compared to PIR sensors, breakbeams are faster and allow better control of where you want to detect the motion. Compared to Sonar modules, they're less expensive. However, you do need both emitter and receiver on opposite sides of the area you want to monitor. This is the 3mm IR version. It works up to 25cm / 10". You can power it from 3.3V or 5V, but 5V will get you better range and is what we suggest. The receiver is open collector transistor output which means that you do need a pull up resistor if you want to read a digital signal off the signal wire. Most microcontrollers have the ability to turn on a built in pull up resistor. If you do not, connect a 10K resistor between the white wire of the receiver and the red wire. If you want to control a relay or LED or whatever, it can sink up to 100mA to ground
Dan Cohen
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2025
Used this for a beam-break project on Raspberry Pi 3B+. Worked as expected. Pretty easy to set up; I used Python for simplicity; ChatGPT was a big help.
Chuck
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2024
Works well for 1/32 SCALE slot car timing trigger in light bridge at 6" distance with beam being broken in 1/1000s of a second.
Bryan Welsh
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2024
Someone wrote a review about small wires. Not sure what they are talking about. It comes with dupont pins as shown in pic and wires are smallish but are as expected. Everything is good and it works perfect for what I'm doing.
Dave Skura
Reviewed in Canada on March 9, 2023
I was sad to learn the Adafruit website sells for much less, but I can't deny ordering from here meant I got the item in a few days and it works perfectly.
Junko Mailo
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2023
I have ordered these 3 times which says a lot. I am using the to turn a lamp on and off. Sensors are good quality as are the wires.
Michael G. Matrix
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2020
These have a pretty short range, after about 10 inches there is no chance it will work reliably. But it worked perfectly for my project, a touchless light for my water cooler.
LouFromDetroit
Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2020
I used these for a break beam sensor They are packaged nice and work well and have mounting features (m4 screw hole). Note that other lights (sun and lamps) will interfere with the sensor but that is true of most IR sensors.
Mike
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2019
Very happy with this beam break setup. sensitive, accurate and easy to use. I had faffed around for a couple of evenings trying to get IR LEDs and recievers to communicate properly, this took me no time at all (I'm very new to Arduino projects). Search online for the adafruit sketches to get started.
Cedric
Reviewed in France on April 16, 2019
Fonctionne bien avec un Raspberry Pi, pour peu que l'on configure le PIN en Pull Up.Par contre je ne l'ai pas encore testé en conditions réelles, donc je ne peux me prononcer sur la portée et la sensibilité à la lumière, à voir...
Stef
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2018
I have used these break beam sensors on several builds and they work perfectly. I've primarily used them for interactive games where I needed to know when a player hit a certain section of a course. I recommend keeping the setting as dark as possible and they really have to be lined up almost perfectly. I ordered two and one pair was a little finicky but overall I love working with these things.
James Taylor
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2018
These work great. I am using them to detect when flow of bubbles stop in a clear plastic tube so my arduino code is backwards of the breakbeam norm, it alerts when they see each other, not when the beam is broken. These sensors have great range and work very well.
N
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2016
Excellent product, works well and arrived promptly.
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