[chbot] TCS3200 anyone?

[Robin Gilks]

Greetings all

We're 100kg into harvesting (and hence washing) walnuts and the next issue
that needs to be automated is grading. Nuts with dark stains on the shell
are quite often rotten but in any case they are only accepted by the
processor as a low grade. Trouble is, a few duff nuts in a bag of good
ones reduces the grade and hence price of the whole bag.

Does anyone have experience with the TCS3200 programmable colour to
frequency converter device? Looks pretty simple to interface to :)

I'll be getting a few from here:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-5-pcs-lot-GY-31TCS230-TCS3200-Module-Color-sensors-Color-Recognition-Module-Color-Sensing/32315491284.html
but I wonder how much these modules measure the spectrum of the LEDs
rather than the object illuminated!

I think the main issues will be mechanical ones - have the nuts travel
slow enough to measure their colour and for the sorting gate to operate
but quick enough to be able to process in a reasonable time.

Avoid nut jams will also be an issue - whenever there is a hopper of
product it will block the outlet irrespective of the outlet diameter
(Murphy's 7th law - the other 6 all say the same!).

Perhaps someone has done this sort of thing in a previous (or maybe even a
current) life.

-- 
Robin Gilks