Melopero VL53L1X

Getting Started

Prerequisites

You will need:

• a python3 version, which you can get here: download python3
• the VL53L1X sensor: buy here

Installing

You can install the melopero-vl53l1x module by typing this line in the terminal:

sudo pip3 install melopero-vl53l1x

Module description

The module contains a class to easily access the VL53L1X's sensor functions.

Usage

First you need to import the module in your file:

import melopero_vl53l1x as mp

Then you can create a simple vl53l1x object and access it's methods, the sensor object will be initialized with the i2c address set to 0x29 and the i2c bus to 1 alias (dev/i2c-1) which is the standard i2c bus in a Raspberry pi.

sensor = mp.VL53L1X()

Alternatively you can modify it's parameters by typing

sensor = mp.VL53L1X(i2c_addr = myaddress, i2c_bus = mybus)

Note: If you are using multiple vl53l1x together they all have to be on the same i2c bus

The sensor has the following methods

sensor.start_ranging(range_mode) # Starts ranging, range_mode can be one of SHORT_DST_MODE, MEDIUM_DST_MODE, LONG_DST_MODE 
sensor.get_measurement() #returns the last measurement taken
sensor.stop_ranging() #stops the continuous ranging
sensor.set_intermeasurement_period(millis) #sets the milliseconds between measurements
sensor.set_measurement_timing_budget(millis) #Sets the milliseconds the sensor has to take a measurement, must be between [20ms, 1000ms]

Update: It is no longer needed to explicitly close the connection to the device. All resiurces will be freed when the object is out of scope ((or) is deleted).
Remember to close the connection after using the sensor

sensor.close_connection()

Example

The following example will print out the measured distance a 100 times

import time
import melopero_vl53l1x as mp

sensor = mp.VL53L1X()
sensor.start_ranging(mp.VL53L1X.MEDIUM_DST_MODE)
for i in range(100):
    print(sensor.get_measurement())
    time.sleep(0.1)

sensor.stop_ranging()
sensor.close_connection()