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How to Send Data by Light: Fiber Optics

by iScience on October 26, 2011

Table of Contents

How to Send Data by Light: Fiber Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Intro: How to Send Data by Light: Fiber Optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 1: Getting Started! Materials & Other Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 2: Building the Transmitter circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Step 3: Building the Reciever Circuit!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 4: Programming the Arduino! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

File Downloads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Step 5: Testing it Out! :D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Step 6: How it works.... :O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Step 7: Now applying to your project! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

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 Author:iScience
I love SCIENCE. The world of knowledge. If you are reading this, You TOO will love SCIENCE

Intro: How to Send Data by Light: Fiber Optics

We've using copper wires for sending signals on 20st Century. Now we are in 21st century!
In this tutorial, Im going to show you how to send information by LIGHT using Fiber Optics. Friends, Welcome to the 21st Century!

Some of you will be thinking, Why not use our good old friend Copper Wire? Friends, We all know light can travel
299,792,458 meters per second. Thats really, really fast. This can be very useful for High-Speed Internet (Man! I love that one!).

Enough of explaining, Lets get right on it!

Step 1: Getting Started! Materials & Other Stuff

For our project here, We will need only few items:

Materials:
1. 1 Arduino - We will need it for receiving data.
2. Fiber Optic Cable - Search the internet (Got mine Here .)! Dont get the 200$ one. Get one thats about under 50$
3. A LED - The brighter LED is, the better.
4. Photoresistor - We need to recieve the light right?
5. A 22 Ohm Resistor - You'll need it for better results
6. Switch - Simple Push-Button switch will work nice
7. Some wires - We will need a copper wire. Its ok. Its only few inches long :P
8. Breadboard - Make thing simple!
9. Electrical Tape
10. Last but not least, Some batteries :P

Other Stuff:
1. Computer - We need to program our Microcontroller!
2. Arduino IDE - Download Right Here !
3. Some Time

Got all that? Lets start!

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Send-Data-by-Light-Fiber-Optics/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. Bunch of Copper Wires 1. Breadboard
2. Push Button Switch 2. Arduino
3. LED 3. Batteries
4. Photoresistor
5. Resistors - 22 Ohms (You will only need 1)
6. Fiber Optic is behind the scene... Sorry about that

Step 2: Building the Transmitter circuit

Now lets build the transmitter circuit!!!

Transmitter:
Transmitter is basically LED Flashlight with a push button. Check the picture above.
Once you made it, attach the Fiber Optic Cable to the LED like in the picture above.

That is it for the Transmitter!! :D

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Send-Data-by-Light-Fiber-Optics/
 Image Notes
1. LED attached to Fiber Optics with Electrical Tape
2. Push Button
3. Wire going into LED
4. Wire going into the Switch
5. Battery

Step 3: Building the Reciever Circuit!!

The Reciever is slightly more advanced. You need to attach Resistor, LED, and Photoresistor
like in the Circuit Diagram above.
Make sure to connect the right pin of the Arduino.

WARNING: MAKE SURE NO LIGHT IS LEAKING/EXPOSED TO THE PHOTORESISTOR

Image Notes
1. Photoresistor connected to the Fiber Optic Cable with Electrical Tape
2. Wire Connections
3. The Arduino's A0 pin!
4. The 5V and GND pin is located here!
5. Scrap wire. Dont care about this :P

Image Notes
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Send-Data-by-Light-Fiber-Optics/
 1. Hook this wire into Arduino pin A0!
2. Photoresistor
3. Resistor!
4. Hook this wire to the Arduino pin GND! Then GND stands for Ground
5. Hook this wire to the Arduino pin marked 5V!
(This pin is next to the GND pin!)

Step 4: Programming the Arduino!

Connect your Arduino with your USB Cable, and download the Zip file below.
Once you downloaded it (Its only 2KB), Extract the files, Then goto the 'FiberOpticReciever' folder and click on the
'FiberOpticReciever.pde' file.
Open it up with the Arduino IDE and Upload it to your Arduino.

File Downloads

FiberOpticReciever.zip (1 KB)
[NOTE: When saving, if you see .tmp as the file ext, rename it to 'FiberOpticReciever.zip']
Step 5: Testing it Out! :D
Now lets test it out!

Make sure the Fiber Optic Cable's one end is connected to the LED Transmitter(The what we call 'LED Flashligh')
and the other end is connected to the Reciever.
Once your sure you got all components right, no loose wires or anything like that, Power on you arduino by connecting
to your computer!

Tips: You CAN use batteries but we need to check the serial monitor

Open your Arduino IDE, And click the Serial Monitor logo (Check the pictures). You will see some data roaming in!
If you click the button on the Transmitter, The Serial monitor will stop spitting numbers for about a second, and
prints out 'Data Detected'. If it does, then you've succesfully sended Data!! <= Check out my pictures above!

Image Notes
1. This message will apear when you clicked the button on the Transmitter!
2. I clicked the button twice :P
3. This is the Resistance value. Your's can be different depending on the Fiber
Optic Cable

Image Notes
1. This is the Serial Monitor Logo!!
2. Code!

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Send-Data-by-Light-Fiber-Optics/
Step 6: How it works.... :O
You will be thinking: "Hmmm Thats cool! How how does it work"?

I'll first explain about how the circuit works.

The Transmitter circuit is just a LED connected to the battery! No other things.

But the reciever in the other hand, has a Photoresistor, and a handy-dandy resistor. Why?
The Photoresistor is a Light sensor.So if it recieves Light, the resistance gets higher.
But if it recieves low light, the resistance gets lower!
What about the resistor? The resistor is just to make data incoming from the Photoresistor easier!

Now I will explain the code

The code is simply measuring the photoresistor's light and comparing it to the last Photoresistor value!
If there is a +100 difference, the program will treat it as 'Light ON'!
But If there is no difference, the program will keep searching for +100 difference!

Simple right?

Step 7: Now applying to your project!

We just sended On/OFF signals using light! But you can send other data like Sounds, Text, Numbers or whatever!
You can use my Reciever circuit, but you can design your own to make it better!

Tips: The main difficulties on sending data with light is that you have to convert your data into flickering light,
and then back to your original data. Thats pretty time-consuming but the results are GREAT!!

If you have any questions, Comment!! Thanks for reading my instructable! God bless!!!

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Comments
1 comments Add Comment

iScience says: Oct 28, 2011. 1:02 AM REPLY

Need any help? COMMENT! I will love to help you guys out!

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Send-Data-by-Light-Fiber-Optics/