Optical mouse and position sensing

Denzel

Senior Member
This is something ive been wanting to try for a while.
To use an optical laser mouse (no balls) and a picaxe for accurate position sensing.

Most mice these days are usb i.e. they contain a chip that converts rs232 to Usb. which can be ripped out I guess but I still see mice with the PS/2 connection (serial)

I have seen various attempts to use both usb mice and PS/2 mice for position sensing. One thing that interested me was the PAK XI chip http://www.awce.com/pak11.htm which you connect to the mouse and a picaxe or basic stamp available for around 24 USD

In "experiments in mechatronics using the picaxe controllers" by David Lincoln it features a circuit (attached) where you can interface with an ASCII Keyboard using a PS/2 connection with an 18A. The circuit also includes an LCD interface which does not interest me. But my question is this, If a keyboard can be interfaced with a picaxe why cant a mouse?

Perhaps using the shiftin shiftout commands

I am looking to use it on a small robot to work out its position on 1m square floor.
All of the optical laser mice using USB that are used for this purpose have had their rs232 to USB chip removed. What I have found is that in every example the mouse has an Avago ADNS - 2610 optical mouse sensor. These are quite hard to come by in New Zealand :(

Has anyone ever attempted this?
 

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Michael 2727

Senior Member
Optical mouses use a low res B/W Digital Camera, usually 36 (6x6) to 144 (12x12) or so
pixels. (maybe even more these days)
Google search - Agilent ADNS-2051 Optical Mouse Sensor (450kb.pdf). Just one of many.
They need a fast processor (typ) 18.XX MHz.
And the lens assembly is critical to make them work correctly, a few mm + / - either
way and wont get a predictable response.

Some clever person may come up with a usable Picaxe application, but I won't
hold my breath waiting. :)
 

evanh

Senior Member
The optical mouse sensors are all designed by Hewlett Packard -> Agilent -> some other name now. The optics division has been sold off at least twice.

The different parts are just the various design generations over the years and the different feature sets. All mouse makers just plop one these devices in a mould and throw some bells in the mouse driver and call it theirs. AFAIK there has never been any competition for making the sensors.
 

evanh

Senior Member
Oh, and the unused pins from 7-10 on the sensor are the X-Y axis quadrature outputs that can be used instead of the SPI port.
 

evanh

Senior Member
Err, I'm a bit out of date. The only active sensor left with quadrature outputs is the ADNS-2051.

I've just had a good look through the new list of datasheets at http://www.avagotech.com/pages/en/navigation_interface_devices/navigation_sensors/led-based_sensors/ and http://www.avagotech.com/pages/en/navigation_interface_devices/navigation_sensors/laserstream/

Probably the main reason is because the newer sensors have a large configuration feature set, so they need programming via the SPI port.
 
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