Trying NOT to short things out!

[Rokkit]

Use a 100? resistor for the LED side and a 10K for the photodiode side and you should be good to go

[ddeprospero]

Dan, EXCELLENT information and thank you again for the suggestions! I will order up a few of those and try it out. Hopefully things will work out as anticipated. I will let you know.
;-)

-Dave

[ddeprospero]

Rokkit - the optocouplers arrived last evening, and I just wired them up on the breadboard! THEY WORK PERFECT!!!!! That is exactly the solution I needed, and your diagram made it especially simple for me.

The only correction I had to make is that you shunted pin 4 to Arduino ground, as well as going to the Arduino input pin. This did not work for me - I was getting a massive constant voltage (7-8.5VDC). Instead I glanced at the datasheet and shunted pin 6 to Arduino ground, and just left pin 4 as the input voltage.  It worked fine! I have all 5 wired up (I got a deal on ebay - 5 for $2.99), and IT WORKS!!

Once again, thank you so very much for your suggestions and insight! I would not be at this point without you.

-Dave

[Rokkit]

I'm glad you got it working.