I spent about an hour today looking at electronic circuit kits online for Infrared kits that could trip a relay when Ir light was dected. I found no such circuit though. At my school almost all the bathrooms have paper towel despencers where if you hold your hand in front of a certian spot about 1-3 inches away it trips the circuit and paper dispences. well if I had a circuit like this then the relay could be connected to the cd/dvd drive open/close buttons. then the drives could be stealthed and the Ir sensors and transmitters hidden behind vents or small holes in the case. by simply holding your hand infront of the right spot for a second the correct drive would open or close. i think a circuit like this would be fairly simple to build and would work well in a customised case (espically plexi) or any case with stealthed drives. anyone have any idea on how to build this kind of circuit or have seen a kit that can do this?
Funny you should post this, I just did this with my latest mod. Only I had to use proximity sensors. IR proved insuficent for the task. As for holding your your hand...I simply swipe my hand 50mm in front of the case and the drive opens. edit: I purchased photoelectric proximity sensors, which run on 12 volts. they are also really small about 3cm deep, and 1.5cm wide (cylindrical).
project link...no, because its not done. but I baught them here The cylindrical sensors come in 3mm, 5mm and 18mm diameters. Diffuse sensors detect the 'quantity' of light reflected back from a target to detect the target, and background-suppression sensors use the angle of incidence of the reflected light to detect a target. The prices of thier photoelectric sensors range from $20+ to $200+.
