What's the difference between ultrasonic sensors?

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
1

Doing a little (re)search on the net for things I can get to play with my arduino with and I came across some sonic range finders.

MaxSonar EZx
MaxSonar UT

I know in the EZ range the field is different but what is the difference between the UT and EZx other than the fact the UT is 1/5 of the price?

2

I think that the UT is the raw transducer, the EZ comes with some extra circutry that makes it A LOT easier to interface to for instance Arduino.

3

MaxSonar UT are just transducer

MaxSonar EZ ar the same transducer with electronics to drive the transducer and compute the distance.

4

How much harder is it to program with the UT? I'm just looking purely at a cost side of things. 2 x EZ = $55 or 2 x UT = $12

5

How much harder is it to program with the UT?

Well, if it's a bare transducer, generating the outgoing pulse is dead easy.

However, amplifying the returned echo, which may only generate a voltage of a few hundred microvolts is tough in software.

6

A raw transducer is pretty much useless with Arduino. You need electronic amplification & filtering followed by complex DSP. Go with the EZ. You may also consider Devantech - a similar product that can report multiple targets.