Posted by Bob Sisson on January 29, 2002 at 07:29:04:
For those of you who run the ELS adapters on the LC guns, you can build your own sensor arrays, and YOU DON'T NEED THE VESTS!!!.
With the ELS adapters and the vests turned on to ELS, the Vests are nothing but very big splice points.
You can connect the Panasonic 38Khz detector directly to the ELS adapter.
(Part No. PNA4612M00YB-ND)
on MY ELS pack, the wires comming from the adapter were:
BLACK - GROUND
RED - Battery +
Green - Hit lamp control (TTL!!)
White - IR Sensor.
On the Panasonic sensor, You can connect 3 sensors in PARRALLEL, Vcc to BAT, Gnd to Gnd, and Vout to the IR Sensor. (3 Sensors work very well on a HAT, 120deg appart)
The HIT Lamp needs a PNP transistor to make it suitable for driving a lamp. I used a 2N3906 type from Radio Shack ( 276-1604 )Since I knew it would be universally available. You have ~60-100ma to work with, so you could use high effeciaency LEDs, or a regular lamp.
The Green wire goes to the BASE, the Emitter to VCC, the Base to the LED, and the other leg of the LED to GND. As long as your 'lamp' does not try to pull more than 100ma you shouldn't need a current limiting resistor. I used two LEDs in series and the total voltage drop was enough to self-limit.
I took the Mini-RJ (handset size) out of a dead vest and hot-glued it and all the rest of the components into a hat. The cord is a BIT short, but it works. I am currently looking for a longer, but solderable, handset cord. (Most handset replacement cords use un-colored FOIL conductors which are a PAIN to work with)
For those of you waiting for a HACK of the ELS base to a PC, it may be a while... I have found out that they use a WEIRD protocol... it is NOT RS-232. It is a proprietary serial over a Parallel port. they use TWO (2) bits, a handshake and a ground. Thats why attempts to scan the protocol have failed. The ELS base to the GUN may be easier, as they (I THINK) use a In, out, gnd and sense pins. Looking at typical micro controller to micro-controller communications, it normally IS RS-232. Inverted, but RS-232.
Good luck to all those brave enough to solder...
Bob Sisson