Future Electronics is the only source that has the ADNS-9500 laser mouse chip in stock but the minimum order is 20 units. I tried the usual suspects, ie. Newark, Mouser, Digikey, etc. but nobody has them.
Does anyone know of a source that will sell in lots of 4?
AVNET (avnet.com) sells in single quantities but the stock is zero and availability is 13 weeks. Could buy 20 and sell 16 on eBay (PITA, I know) or still use eBay and buy used Logitech G500 mice (search of completed listings yielded $40 as the lowest price) and de-solder. Just kidding :) In my mind, if you need four and can only get 20 for $5.58 each, by the time you figure in development time and other costs (whatever it is you are building) the $90 difference would seem very insignificant and you'll have 16 spares for just in case.
Else just contact Avago Technologiers directly, explain what the chips are for and I am almost 100% sure they'll be happy to send you samples (for free or nominal cost).
Good luck!
I thought of that- eBay and such. The problem is finding the lenses in small quantities- they seem to have minimum orders of 2000 and up!
I emailed Sparkfun with a suggestion that they stock the chip. They were very positive but we shall see. If you have some supplier of hobbyists like Sparkfun in the UK, then perhaps you could try to get them to stock the chips and lenses.
Meantime I suppose that I will try Avago directly for samples. They can >AVNET (avnet.com) sells in single quantities but the stock is zero and
I think you are right. If anyone should carry it, it's Sparkfun. These guys are awesome and this unusual stuff is right up their alley. And lens are pretty important, too, and it is a separate part. Well, unless you are trying to build the exact same thing - a laser optical mouse (which I doubt), you are probably going to need another lens anyway but I guess you should have the stock one to at least be able to check if the chip is working at all.
Will your application not tolerate the lower resolution of a regular LED optical mouse sensor? That's the type everyone has a dozen of in their junk drawer :)
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I want to build a general purpose measuring device. My first use is to measure the travel of a linear actuator, such as one would have on a satellite dish. I have not acquired one yet, but I imagine that the shaft is shiny, and an LED optical mouse sensor will probably not track on that glossy surface. But I suppose that I am designing from ignorance here! I will get a hold of an actuator in the New Year and see if LED wil do.
The other idea was to use it instead of a quadrature decoder on a rotating surface, such as a wheel. If you mount it at right angles to the direction of rotation, you should only get a reading in either the x or y direction. You would be able to get distance and direction and speed from it. I wanted the '9500 because it is the fastest thing out there. You could measure faster rotation. It would be great for measuring angles.
I bought a laser mouse with a lesser chip in it but haven't hacked it yet- Holidays you know.
Let me know if you manage to source them and I will do likewise.
I don't want to sound overly confident. I've actually never had to source the chips. I have attempted to prototype a very similar application - measuring the travel distance of a small CNC router's gantry using the LED optical mouse but did give up before getting any results, really - RSF Elektronik makes very nice optical linear encoders that are abundant on eBay and more precise (1 um) so getting a ready-made encoder looked like a better choice for me.
As far as using laser chip to measure against a chromed cylinder shaft - I would still test the mouse that you already have first to see if it works reliably. They say it works on shiny surfaces but you may encounter some slippages that are fine for moving a cursor on a screen yet would kill your application.
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