<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 20, 2006, at 12:28 PM, Michael Ruberto wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">From the limited experience I've had working with pick-and-place robots I would not choose IR. Incandescent lighting will play merry havoc on IR detectors. I once made a pick-and-place machine start thowing parts across the room by getting too close with an incandescent worklight.</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV>The Roland products which contain the so-called "D-Beam" seem to work very well, regardless of the ambient lighting situation. They use an IR LED/detector pair. They are, however, calibrated to be sensitive only to reflected IR that's pretty close to the detector. They don't really notice anything that's more than about 20 inches away from the detector. I imagine that if you boosted the detector's sensitivity, it might have problems with ambient light. They're awful fun to play with, though.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I like your story about the revolting pick-and-place robots. The evil robots are going to conquer us one day, you know that, right? It has already started. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Evidence: <A href="http://www.governor.ca.gov/state/govsite/gov_htmldisplay.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0029290663.1148154358@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdaddhldidfidcfngcfkmdffidfog.0&sFilePath=%252fgovsite%252fbiography%252fbio_arnold_schwarzenegger.html&sTitle=Arnold+Schwarzenegger+Biography&sCatTitle=Biographies">http://www.governor.ca.gov/state/govsite/gov_htmldisplay.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0029290663.1148154358@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdaddhldidfidcfngcfkmdffidfog.0&sFilePath=%2fgovsite%2fbiography%2fbio_arnold_schwarzenegger.html&sTitle=Arnold+Schwarzenegger+Biography&sCatTitle=Biographies</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>More evidence: <A href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/vpbio.html">http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/vpbio.html</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And more: <A href="http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html">http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>