VL53L5CX: Range does not necessarily mean what you would expect...

[JLojo]

It would be nice to state clearly in the datasheet what does 'range' means.

This is actually not the distance between the sensor and the target, but the projection of this distance on the axis orthogonal to the plane of the sensor... (i;e. the height of the target assuming the sensor lays horizontally)

It would save us lot of precious time trying to run fastidious experiments trying to understand the observed behavior.

JYL

[John E KVAM]

We discussed the Rad2Perp (Radial to Perpendicular) conversion after the chip came out.

The chip was designed exclusively to focus the camera in a cell phone, and the perpendicular distance is what that application called for.

We don'te have the ability to turn it off programmatically.

But now the chip is used for all sorts of things from Robots to water level detectors.

Do you have an application where you would rather have the radial dimensions?

Perhaps we could add the ability to disable the conversion if custormers wanted that.

(Or consider it for the next chip.)

• john

[JLojo]

Many thanks John for your reply.

Actually, I don't really care about the radial or perpendicular distance; I'm able to easily convert from one to the other!

The only important thing is to know what we are talking about.

This is why a simple mention in the datasheet would be very helpful.

It would have save me a lot of previous time if this information was clearly mentioned in the documentation.

best regards

JYL

[John E KVAM]

Well I'm sorry you spent time on the issue.

Did you buy the P-Nucleo-53L1A1 eval kit?

If you didn't - you should. It will come in handy all through the project - and it's only $56 dollars.

(We lose money on every one, so I'm not pushing a product, but trying to make your life easier.)

Generally people put them on a desk pointed at the ceiling first thing.

The perpendicular result seems intuitive to most peole.

And it gets worse - the VL53L7 that just came out has a 60x60 Field of View.

• john

[JLojo]

Actually I needed to integrate the sensor in a modbus environment and I had a home-brew board, based on a STM32L452 able to do that. I thus purchased a VL53L5CX-SATEL kit, that I connected to my board and used the Ultra Lite Driver to manage it: Easy!!!

And this is indeed when I put it on my desk, pointing at the ceiling, that I started wondering what 'Range' did mean...

Many thanks anyway for your feedback!

JYL