Building the machine #7 - The infrared sensor
At some point we got it to work. Here’s proof:
However we couldn't keep the motor we salvaged from an old printer running at all times as it would overheat pretty quickly. To make sure its only running if the printer is spitting something out, we added an infrared sensor to the setup, connected it with the Arduino. The sensor triggers when it detects something in front of it, the software keeps the motor running as long as the sensor is triggered and for 5 more seconds once the sensor is no longer triggered, just to make sure the paper goes all the way down.
We mounted the sensor on the top of the folding mechanism with a sophisticated combination of 2 strips of sticky tape. This way the sensor is triggered as soon as the paper leaves the folding tube and heads onto the transport mechanism.








