Mouse Sensor

[tailer]

Hey,

i dont know where i can start with my problem.

What do i want to do?
I want to detect the moving of an band of Metal or plastik. I thought about some mechanic things, but for my projekt i need some exact value like an lasermouse sensor or so.
I thought about "rotary decoding" like an old mousewheel or so. There i´ve got the precission problems and i can not detect an minimal moving of the strip.

I found something on the internet by Sparkfun.
touch this


So this works for one band i think, but i need it 32 times and i have to recognize every single moving. So that i know which band moves forward or backwards. I thought about something like an BUS-system, so that everysensor got his own ID an sends an String to the mainboard.

So at all, is it possible to wire 32 of the sparkfun-device and recognize every single position with a sort of an BUS system?
I want to use an Arduino Mega to get all these things connected and to interpret it.

Sorry for my bad english.
I´m glad to hear from anyone an hint or an solution.

Thanks
Patrick

[adafruit_support_bill]

I am not familiar with that sensor. Have you asked this question over at Sparkfun?

[tailer]

Yes, i wrote an email to the technical support of Sparkfun and i´m waiting for an answer.

[tldr]

sparkfun no longer makes that board because the sensor in its raw state is a form of unobtainium. it can, however, be found in old optical mice. it's easy to interface to using an spi like protocol. it would be even easier if it had a ~cs line, but i don't think it does.

find a place with a bin of cheap optical mice. buy one. open it up. if it's got a compatible chip, buy 31 more.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Can you put any sort of marking on the bands?

[Plasmo]

Has anyone found any information on the Sparkfun board? I'm trying to use this hack as a scanner for quantifying bound parasites, but not having much luck. Been through a number of mice, but so far it's a needle in a haystack finding suitable sensors.