Hi everybody, as may be able to understand, I am a complete newbiee in the field of automation and also a new user of this forum: I am working on a project on which I have to use a Laser Distance Sensor(InfraRed, specifically the Wenglor PNBC006 High-Precision Laser Distance Sensor from WENGLOR); this sensor will be mounted on a slider controlled by a stepper motor; this slider will be on top of a car tyre at a fixed distance and basically the laser sensor needs to measure the distance from the tyre tread while moving over it, from one side to an other. The tyre will be mounted on a motor and spinning with a fixed rate.
My question is, how do i get readings from the sensor to the raspberry pi?(I HAVE TO USE THIS MICROCONTROLLER). I've never used Rasp Pi with industrial sensors before and from the datasheet the Laser has connection socket of 8 pins and I have no clue on how to wire it up to the RASPBERRY Pi!! I really appreciated if you could point me in the right direction and explain to me what I need to do. I've been searching on the web and couldn't find anyone else who didi this before me nor anything else similar! I came accross a lot of new terms and wordings that were unknown to me till few days before typing this.
on the datasheet it says that the sensor has an ethernet tcp/ip inteface, but cannot see anything related to this at least from the drawings...
here I attach a screenshot
Please help me out since I've been hunting and searchin online on how to connect it to the raspberry pi and couldn't do much, actually nothing.
THANK YOU IN ADVACE FOR ANY ADVICE OR HEL OR ANY INFORMATION THAT COULD POINT ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

 

Hi

Have a read on the following link:
https://maxbotix.com/pages/raspberry-pi

You may need an external power supply for the sensor ..

 

Hi there and thank you very much for your input. I have been there in that website and honestly it was (it is ) the only one that really shed some light, however among all the possible sensors listed and the possible ways of connecting, there was no particular case like mine: my sensor has a socket with 8 pins and there is no clue on how to realistically wire then nor any particular hint on the datasheet that could help;However there is only this image on the official documentation the labelled the pins of the cable(with the 8 pins) here is a screeshot
Looking at this last screenshot I only understand that there are 2connection for transmition(Tx) and 2 for recieving(RX) making it a total of 4 wires plus 1 for GRND and 1 for Power I get to 6 wires in totale, and the the remaining 2 wires?
Furthermore there is no indication on which wire is which.....I've already sente a couple of email to Wenglore Technical Assistance asking for help, but it has been more than a week now and I don't think that will ever get back to me (probably for my ignorance).....and here I am still trying to figure out how to wire the sensor to RPi....very frustrating when datasheets are not that cleare in combination with my ignorance in the field...

 

Hi there and thank you very much for your input. I have been there in that website and honestly it was (it is ) the only one that really shed some light, however among all the possible sensors listed and the possible ways of connecting, there was no particular case like mine: my sensor has a socket with 8 pins and there is no clue on how to realistically wire then nor any particular hint on the datasheet that could help;However there is only this image on the official documentation the labelled the pins of the cable(with the 8 pins) here is a screeshot
View attachment 2794View attachment 2795Looking at this last screenshot I only understand that there are 2connection for transmition(Tx) and 2 for recieving(RX) making it a total of 4 wires plus 1 for GRND and 1 for Power I get to 6 wires in totale, and the the remaining 2 wires?
Furthermore there is no indication on which wire is which.....I've already sente a couple of email to Wenglore Technical Assistance asking for help, but it has been more than a week now and I don't think that will ever get back to me (probably for my ignorance).....and here I am still trying to figure out how to wire the sensor to RPi....very frustrating when datasheets are not that cleare in combination with my ignorance in the field...

I've just come accross this and I would like if it is something that could help since there is plenty of documentation around that kind of connection to raspberry pi

 

I've just come accross this and I would like if it is something that could help since there is plenty of documentation around that kind of connection to raspberry pi

 

https://how2electronics.com/laser-light-security-system-with-raspberry-pi-pico-ldr/

 

Hi thx for these inputs

Looks like you got a push pull output transistor type NPN PNP teh thing is you need to know which type is used on the Rasperry PI

 

I was also thinking of something like this(which would be even better) if it is REAL and somebody assures me that actually works(I mean i can read sensor data over Ethernet connection)

 

In post #3, the figure labeled 134 is the analog/discrete I/O connector, an 8 pin M12 connector. Fig 134 shows which pin is which.

The figure labeled 004 is a 4 pin transformer coupled Ethernet connection on the 4 pin M12 connector.

Just looking at the box tells you the 8 pin M12 is on the left and 4 pin M12 is on the right, the photo in the operating manual spells it out for you:

You do have the operating manual, don't you?
https://www.wenglor.com/medias/__secure__?mediaPK=8800160677918&attachment=true

 

T H A N K Y O U S O M U C H for this !!! Really!!! I'm starting to see some light!!! NOW I CAN SEE SOMETHING !!!! the only thing left for me is now figure out how to get it to talk to Raspberry Pi; reading the documentation, it seems that pins(m12 8pin) can be configured either as digital input or analog input; From some documentation around here on the web it seems I only need to choose 2 pins (among the possible ones) and use them as either dogital/analog pins for the Raspberry in such a way that i will end up using only 4 out of 8 pins: ground-power-Tx-Rx......I WISH I HOPE AND I PRAY I get it working otherwise I really have no clue where to look for or what else I can try....BUT THANK YOU ANYWAY FOR THE HELP, AMAZING COMMUNITY

 

@David_2 PLS dont hate me: the PDF link doesn't work; this is what i get

 

Link URL corrected. Sorry for the bad link.

Suggestion that you sum up your technical question in the subject line. Some Fora delete threads begging for help without any statement as to the type of problem or what field or category.

 

thanks a lot, i'm going through it right now

 

@David_2 THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU WHOEVER YOU ARE, WHEREVER YOU ARE!!!BLESS YOU FROM THE DEEP OF MY HEART&SOUL!!! I've reached a state of disperation like never before!! NOW with this PDF I fell Free!!! Bless you DAVID

 

Without your help it would have taken me a while, a very long long while to get it done, but thanks to your PDF I'm really full of joy!!I'm so thankful for this really!! The mannual says it very clearly: ETHERNET connection-type with Switches set-up !!(the sensor supports 2 type of connections as you @David_2 said before)

 

Without your help it would have taken me a while, a very long long while to get it done, but thanks to your PDF I'm really full of joy!!I'm so thankful for this really!! The mannual says it very clearly: ETHERNET connection-type with Switches set-up !!(the sensor supports 2 type of connections as you @David_2 said before) View attachment 2800

For anybody out there stuck with the same issue: it turns out the PBNC006 allows Telnet data streaming through port 3000; so the idea is now connect to it using [email protected] and trying to write a basic script to get those readings:
I thought of this basic python script:import telnetlib

# Open a telnet connection to the server
tn = telnetlib.Telnet("192.168.0.255", 3000)

while True:
# Read a line of data from the telnet server
data = tn.read_until(b"\n").decode().strip()

# Display the received data
print(data)



Any idea or suggestions would be appreciated