Re. using sound, I do not think that will work well. The speed of sound in air varies quite a bit with conditions.
I spent the last little bit drawing a sketch of a baseball (3" diameter) going past sensors (red circles) to show the effect of sensor spacing on maximum error, assuming the path of the baseball is perpendicular to the axis of the sensors. As a first approximation, the timer would start and stop at first break. The location of first break (e.g., from an 8-bit or 16-bit word depending on whether 8 or 16 sensors are used at each gate) could be used to help determine path.
View attachment 68892
It is a little fuzzy because of all the conversions I had to go through from my CAD program to get a jpg.
I am not quite sure how you can get path and time with just 2 sensors. As Pommie suggested, measuring the time the beam is broken at each gate could be very useful information.
John
Oops, "apaced" should be "spaced." It is too hard to change now.
I spent the last little bit drawing a sketch of a baseball (3" diameter) going past sensors (red circles) to show the effect of sensor spacing on maximum error, assuming the path of the baseball is perpendicular to the axis of the sensors. As a first approximation, the timer would start and stop at first break. The location of first break (e.g., from an 8-bit or 16-bit word depending on whether 8 or 16 sensors are used at each gate) could be used to help determine path.
View attachment 68892
It is a little fuzzy because of all the conversions I had to go through from my CAD program to get a jpg.
I am not quite sure how you can get path and time with just 2 sensors. As Pommie suggested, measuring the time the beam is broken at each gate could be very useful information.
John
Oops, "apaced" should be "spaced." It is too hard to change now.
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